The Adventure of the Stained Ceiling
by Doc M
Summary: Inspired by a joke about 'Tess of the Baskervilles'. The beautiful Mrs. Clare confesses to stabbing her lover Alec d'Urberville. Holmes and Watson uncover a sinister web of conspiracy, candomblé and armadillo sewing baskets.
1. The Ace of Hearts

**THE ADVENTURE OF THE STAINED CEILING**

**A Sherlock Holmes Mystery**

edited from a transcript of Dr. J. H. Watson's case notes

by Dr. M. M. G.

**CHAPTER I.**

**THE ACE OF HEARTS**

By the beginning of May 1890, Holmes' recourse to cocaine was once more giving his closest friends cause for concern. He claimed that it was the inevitable result of too little brainwork, but I suspected that he would fare better away from the stresses of London life. As he found the countryside disturbing, my wife ventured that a busy seaside town might prove more to his taste. Mrs. Hudson suggested Sandbourne on the Wessex coast, where her second-cousin, a master mariner's widow, ran a small but reputable guest-house. Holmes was initially reluctant, but I stood firm as doctor and friend, and eventually convinced him of the wisdom of this. Mary agreed that I should accompany him for the first two weeks to ensure that he settled and to keep an eye on his use of the needle. "After all," she said, "you need a rest, too. Besides, it's a health resort - no-one's likely to be murdered there!"

* * *

Thus it was that Holmes and I came to be residing on the second floor of The Herons, a pleasant villa overlooking the Lower Gardens, with real herons and squirrels frequently in view. The proprietrix, Polly Brooks - _née_ Forbes - was a straight-backed Scotswoman, a little under fifty, with kind eyes but a bitter mouth. She was perpetually busying about, her presence indicated, even when she was not visible, by the rattle of heavy jet beads and the rustle of bombazine. She kept the house personally, with only part-time staff, priding herself on 'running a tight ship' and balancing her books. I could not but think that, in her cousin's place, she would not have tolerated a long-term tenant as eccentric as Holmes, although she herself was rumoured to be interested in table-rapping.

Holmes was initially unsettled by the air of sunny, cosmopolitan ephemerality which clung to Sandbourne. He complained bitterly about leaving London. However, he soon adapted. Before our first week was out, he had returned to his oldest and favourite study - that of humanity, as embodied by our fellow-guests. The first floor was occupied by two married couples. The rear apartment was that of the Oaks, middle-aged, wealthy farming people whose dinner conversation generally concerned the latest agricultural equipment and diseases of sheep. It seemed fortunate that they found each other interesting, for no-one else did, least of all their immediate neighbours, one of whom had rechristened the lady '_Baa_-thsheba'. For the front apartment, directly below our own rooms, was being leased by a honeymoon couple, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander d'Urberville. Holmes regarded them as quite fascinating.

They were certainly an attractive pair, both tall and dark. He was twenty-eight or so, full of vitality and wit, and strikingly handsome in a faintly unEnglish way. His charm was sufficient to prevent Mrs. Oak taking offence at his nickname for her, and even Mrs. Brooks was not immune, remarking: "The lassie's got hersel' a braw catch there!" He, in turn, seemed to have found a fine match in his wife, Teresa, whom he clearly adored. She was several years his junior, a beauty, with a face in which girlish innocence blended with a more womanly warmth. Her figure was voluptuous, and her voice melodious, with a soft Wessex accent. There was not a person, male or female, at The Herons (even Holmes, to a degree) who was not utterly captivated by her unaffected grace - and yet sometimes a faint air of melancholy clung to her. I had gleaned, from conversation and from the half-mourning colours which she wore, that her father had died earlier in the year; but something made me wonder whether that was the full explanation.

Before dinner one evening, Mrs. Brooks had carried in Rio, her green parrot, to amuse the guests. On given verbal cues, the bird squawked snatches of sea-chanties and Scots songs. Mrs. d'Urberville was particularly enthralled, and began chatting and chirruping to it through the bars of its cage.

"She's very fond of birds," her husband commented to me. "She used to look after my late mother's."

"Really?"

"Yes - she whistled tunes to them! She speaks fluent bullfinch - don't you, Tess?"

She turned, smiling wanly at his jest.

He winked mischievously back at her, and tweaked his moustache. "She's a stunner! Incomparable! I thought I'd lost her for ever once - it nearly ruined me. D'you how far I sank?"

"Drink?" I ventured.

D'Urberville laughed. "Worse - _religion_! Fortunately, she saved me from myself, talked me right out of it - otherwise I'd still be preaching in some God-forsaken village hall! Can you imagine?"

"I can't, actually."

"Neither can I, now! Talk about '_Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath!_'- I count myself a _very_ lucky fellow to have found her again!" And then he added, less lightly: "I just hope she thinks she's a lucky girl..."

Even then it struck me as an odd thing to say. I watched him put his arm around his bride's waist, and whistle a few bars of _Greensleeves_ to the parrot. I could not but think that the tune too belied his apparent cheerfulness. Later, before we retired, I voiced my misgivings to Holmes.

"I doubt they _are_ married - I've never heard them quarrel," he said.

"You're an inveterate cynic, Holmes!"

"And _you_ are an inveterate romantic, Watson - Think of yourself and Mary! Sometimes you argue over something as inconsequential as the siting of a pepperpot on the dinner table, while remaining the best of friends, as married people do. I fancy our young neighbours lack the security to risk such trivial tempests. There is something curious about them."

It was my turn for scepticism. "Nonsense - they're only newly-weds - delightful people. I was probably reading far too much into-"

"But watch them together. It is evident that he is besotted with her. Yet sometimes it is as if she absents herself emotionally from him - as if her heart is with something - or someone - else."

"You suspect her of infidelity?"

"No - there is nothing furtive in her manner. It is rather as if she were remembering someone dead, who has a claim upon her - a claim stronger than that of the living. And I'm not thinking of a father."

"You'd better ask Mrs. Brooks to do some of her table-rapping, then! Honestly, Holmes, you're supposed to be resting!"

"I need intellectual stimulation: it is idleness which drives me to the needle. And it will be interesting to see how the situation resolves itself."

"You believe he's aware of her state, then?"

"I think your observations were correct, Watson. Beneath the jesting, that boy is profoundly unhappy. Have you noticed how much he smokes? And do you know _Greensleeves_?"

"Yes; Mary plays it sometimes on the piano."

"The words?"

I tried to remember; then, for some reason, it was the last verse which came to mind:

"_Well, I will pray to God on high,  
That thou my constancy may'st see,  
And that yet once before I die  
Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me._"

"It is unfortunate that he has to compete with a ghost," Holmes said. "You know, he is not _quite_ a gentleman - too well-dressed, and that diamond ring is far too bold. His accent suggests the North - removed to these parts in childhood, no doubt - and a _very_ minor public school. I doubt whether d'Urberville is his real name. Intelligent, but perhaps inclined to be guided by his passions. His father, being _nouveau riche_, probably owned a late Rossetti, which may explain his taste for such... _abundant_ pulchritude."

"That's plausible! What about his wife, then?"

"A more mysterious case. She has the graces of a born lady, but I suspect that the trappings accompanying them are lately acquired - her absurd plumed hat and French perfume, for example... You are familiar with Holman Hunt's _The Awakening Conscience_?"

"I recall an engraving of it," I replied, although I confess that I have not my learned colleague's æsthetic sensibilities: his maternal great-uncle was Horace Vernet, the painter of battles.

"The shiny newness of the kept woman's furniture... It reminds me of Mrs. d'Urberville's finery. She does not seem comfortable in it. She is as careful of her speech as a country girl still new to society, and when we were introduced, I noticed how strong and coarse her hands were. She has done heavy manual work, and until quite recently. It's a _mésalliance_, Watson."

"So they are both parvenus, and perhaps her trousseau doesn't quite fit - there's little mystery there to me! She's a splendid-looking girl - albeit rather _obviously_ so!" Unlike my own wife, Mary, whose refinement of person and features suggested the angel, there was more of the pagan goddess about the subject of our conversation.

Holmes drummed his long, thin fingers on the window sill. "She's a creature little encouraged in England, you know..."

"What is?"

"_La femme moyenne sensuelle_," he said with a hint of distaste. "We - the English in general - prefer to praise one extreme and censure the other. Mrs. d'Urberville would be better suited to Dieppe than Sandbourne: after all, she bears a Norman name..."

Given his French blood, Holmes' attitude towards women is baffling.

* * *

The following morning, Holmes revised his opinion of our neighbours' domestic state, as we heard sounds of quarrelling rising through our floor as we took breakfast: a man's angry voice and a woman's sobbing. Perhaps thirty minutes afterwards, he called me to the window to indicate a familiar figure leaving the house in some haste. Mrs. d'Urberville's flamboyant black-plumed hat was covered with a veil, which made me wonder why she was also carrying a parasol - although she might well wish to hide a tear-stained face.

"The proverbial honeymoon is over," Holmes observed laconically.

"No doubt she is going back to Mother!" I said.

"Without her case- No, a stroll on the pier until tempers cool."

We settled back to finish the morning papers. Some time later the calm was suddenly shattered by someone hammering frantically at the door.

"Dr. Watson! Mr. Holmes!"

Holmes sprang to the door. It was Mrs. Brooks, white-faced and wild-eyed. "Please -" she gasped, " - come dounstairs! My ceiling!"

I was just about to suggest that she needed a plasterer, not a detective or a doctor, when she silently raised her hand. Her fingertips were smeared with what looked like -

"Blood! Watson! Hurry!" And with these words, Holmes hastened the frightened woman downstairs. I snatched up my medical bag and followed.

Mrs. Brooks led us to her own parlour to the rear of the ground floor - a haven of simple domesticity in contrast with the studied elegance of the guest rooms. We were greeted by a squawk from the parrot. An armadillo-shell work-basket - no doubt another gift from her late husband - lay overturned by her chair, spilling cotton reels on the floor beside her abandoned _pince-nez_.

"I was sewin', and when I luiked up, _that_ stairted tae appear! Like the Ace o' Herts!" she explained, pointing to a crimson stain the size of a human palm, formed around a cluster of cracks in the plaster.

Holmes climbed upon the gate-leg table below the mark. He touched it, then sniffed and tasted his fingers. "Mrs. Brooks, it _is_ fresh blood!"

"_Hang down, you blood-red roses_," sang the parrot.

"Wheesht!" she said, silencing the bird. "That's the d'Urbervilles' chaumer up there! And _she_'s gaun out!"

Holmes and I ran back up to the first floor, with Mrs. Brooks behind us.

Mrs. Oak, curious at the commotion, was peering across the carved landing balustrades from the rooms opposite. The maid, Susan, who had just arrived for duty, was creeping upstairs.

Holmes knocked on the door: "Sir! Are you all right?" No reply.

Mrs. Brooks used the master-key which she wore on her châtelaine. The drawing room was empty, everything in its place, including the breakfast tray, loaded with bread and a ham, upon the table.

"They've no' touched breakfast!" she whispered.

My colleague's aquiline gaze glided over the tray. "The carving-knife is gone."

The woman put her hand to her throat: "Dear God -" as Holmes pushed apart the folding doors into the bedroom... "He's deid!" she cried out.

"Watson! Quickly! Mrs. Brooks, get those people away from the door! Tell none of them to leave the house! There's been - an accident!"

Alec d'Urberville was lying on his back, close to the edge of the bed, his left hand trailing on the floor. A stream of venous blood was trickling steadily from a stab-wound in his breast. It dripped down into a knot hole in the boards - whence through the cracks in Mrs. Brooks' ceiling.

Not such a lucky fellow after all, I thought, as I endeavoured to staunch the flow: he was already deeply unconscious. "Severe shock. It looks bad."

"The carving knife?" Holmes asked.

"Leaving such a small external wound? Unlikely."

"That's interesting. And there's no sign of a struggle," he commented, already prowling around the room in search of clues. "Prognosis?"

"Hard to assess the internal injuries because of the bleeding. At least it's not _this_ ceiling that's stained... Even so, if the heart _is_ damaged..." I shook my head.

Mrs. Brooks strode back in. "He's no' deid, then- That's guid! I've just sent a workman fae next door for the polis and ambulance -"

"- One of which is probably quite superfluous," Holmes muttered.

She turned almost as ashen as the victim. For a moment I feared that she would faint: I despaired of my friend's tactlessness with the fair sex. However, she simply rolled up her sleeves and loaned her strong hands to help me dress and bandage d'Urberville's wound.

"He's no' deen it himsel', has he, doctor?" she asked anxiously.

"Improbable - the weapon is missing."

"My cairving-knife?"

"Ah yes..." mused my colleague. "The carving-knife..." Using his handkerchief, he picked up Mrs. d'Urberville's scent bottle from the dressing-table and sniffed at it. "His wife even put on her perfume before she left," he commented.

Mrs. Brooks sighed: "If I'd said something - I micht hae stopped her!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, _she_ did it, did she no'? Thon limmer ca'in' hersel' his wife!"

"Explain!"

She walked to the window and began to speak in a low voice. My pen cannot fully convey the flavour of her speech: although she had lived in the South-West of Britain for many years, she retained, from pride, something of the idiom of her native North-East (_In the interests of comprehensibility, however, I have modified throughout her habit, when greatly distressed, of pronouncing 'wh', as in 'what', 'when' c., as 'f'. – J. H. W._) "Early - at about seven - a stranger cam' here, speirin' for Mistress d'Urberville. He said he was a kinsman, 'Angel' by name - mair like the Angel o' Deith, I thocht - a richt shilpit loun, skin and bane, like he was needin' tae be deid! I heard them talkin' - no' on purpose, you ken, but she was staunin' at the chaumer door, and wi' her bein' a mairrit woman and in her nichtgoun... Weel, I keep a respectable house! I heard him ca'in' her 'wife', and her sayin' how she hated Mr. d'Urberville for keepin' them apairt! Then the man gaed awa', and later, when I was haein' my breakfast, I heard quarrellin' - the first time I'd heard thae twa airgue wi' each ither...

"I was worried, sae I went tae see... I durstna chap, sae I - I keeked in at the keyhole - I dinna mak' a habit o' it, sir, you maunna think I dee - But there was the lassie greetin' about her husband... Mr. d'Urberville was abed, for I heard his voice but couldna see him... But you dinna like tae interfere 'twixt a couple, _dee_ you?

"And then, when I was in the dinin'-room, she swans doun the stair like the Queen of Sheba wi' her feathers and frills and veil, and gaes out!... And a' that time he's leein' here like this!" She suppressed a sob.

I left the patient's bedside to comfort her. "My dear lady, you could not have guessed... It has been a terrible shock to all of us..."

"I've aye kept a respectable house! It'll be an awfu' scandal!"

"Mrs. Brooks, perhaps you should go to your rooms and lie down, with a cup of warm sweet tea - eh, Watson?"

"But the patient -"

Holmes strode over to the bed, and checked the pulse in his neck. "I shall deal with the local constabulary; your duty is to... the living."

I nodded, understanding.

"Deid?" the woman gasped.

"Murdered."

"Mrs. Brooks," I said gently, "you may help bring the killer to justice. The police will also want to hear your story, and so you ought to get some rest now. Doctor's orders!"

She forced a grim smile. "Thank you, sir - it's a mercy you were here."

- Although too late, was the thought which passed unspoken between us. She began to shiver, although the room was not cold.

"And Watson," said Holmes, "you'd better send a telegram to Mary - your return may be delayed!"

I helped Mrs. Brooks downstairs to her parlour. She chattered on in a hollow tone about the mess on the floor and ceiling to avoid confronting the crime itself. She seemed not to notice that her lace cuffs were no longer white, and that there were dull, damp marks on her skirt, from where she had knelt beside the bed. Then, resting on the couch, sipping sweet tea, she saw the stain on the plaster again.

"_There is a deid man in my bour:  
I wad he were awa'_," she murmured.

The parrot chuckled, and trilled the tune, _Earl Richard_.

"Will you be all right?"

"Aye... Fowk come here for their health, sae there's aye somebody's guests deein' somewhere... But they're auld, or sick - no' like thon young man... But you'd better get doun tae the Post Office, tae tell your wife, like Mr. Holmes said..."

By the time I returned from the busy Post Office, Holmes had gone back to our own apartment. He sat calmly smoking his pipe in his favourite chair by the window. "The police are turning over the rooms," he said laconically. "They've taken some of the lady's clothing to give the bloodhounds the scent."

"And Mr. - the body?"

"Removed. The coroner shall be informed; no doubt you'll be required to submit your findings, too. And even as we speak, the search is on across the county for the charming Mrs. d'Urberville - or rather, Mrs. Clare, according to papers found in the victim's wallet."

"You were right, then, about there being more to her than met the eye. Such a pretty young thing - a murderess!"

He puffed at his pipe thoughtfully. "I wonder..."

"What do you mean? Surely it's an open-and-shut case - a married woman with a lover, a crime of passion!"

"_Is_ it? There's something about this business which seems too neat, too obvious - and yet there are significant incongruities. We shall see, Watson..."

**To be continued.**


	2. Significant Incongruities

**CHAPTER II.**

**SIGNIFICANT INCONGRUITIES**

For the next few days, the local press was filled with the search for the fugitive and her husband, Mr. Angel Clare, who had checked out of his hotel after the time of the murder (although, doubtless to protect the tourist trade, the press merely reported the case as an "attack", without hinting at the fatal outcome.) As usual, Holmes had ensured, through the police, that our involvement in the case was not disclosed to the public, and so the press merely reported that a workman from the villa next door had discovered the body after Mrs. Brooks had raised the alarm on noticing the bloodstain.

Mrs. Brooks' apparent overriding concern was for the reputation of her business and the financial implications of such a scandal. As soon as the police had finished their investigations of the premises, she called in a joiner and a plasterer to remove the physical traces of the crime from the building. The fact that her few other guests had decided to move to less notorious accommodation after making their statements assuredly distressed her. Mr. and Mrs. Oak said bluntly that they were going straight home to their farm in Weatherbury, because the case evoked "unpleasant memories". I puzzled to think what could lurk in the past of the drab '_Baa_-thsheba'. Meanwhile, casual visitors of ghoulish inclinations began to call at The Herons, asking to see the room in which the crime had taken place. Our hostess refused to admit them.

"There are some gey unca' fowk about. We get them round here, wi' Mistress Shelley being buried at St. Peter's."

"You've read _Frankenstein_, then?" Holmes asked.

"Och, I've read mony novels, sir - when you're aftimes alane, it helps tae pass the time. But even _Lady Audley's Secret_'s naucht tae this!"

Holmes spent each morning reading all the press reports of the "dangerous assault" which he could find in the town, county and national press. In the afternoon, he would clip them out and spread them upon the table.

"It would appear that the gentlemen of the press have Teresa Clare convicted before she has even been arrested," he commented drily.

I shrugged. "Is that surprising? The girl has 'a past' - that's usually enough for them!"

"Yes - according to _The Wessex County Herald_, she is alleged to have been the victim's mistress before her marriage, and to have returned to him on the assumption that her husband had deserted her. I wonder who was paid for that little confidence? And I wonder what bearing it has on what happened downstairs...?"

"The conversations which Mrs. Brooks overheard?"

"Yes. 'The eternal triangle', Watson - or perhaps one should say _infernal_. But is it the motive, or merely the pretext?"

"So you still believe Mrs. Clare may be innocent?"

"Let us say that, at present, it would be premature to assume her guilt. The yellow press no doubt finds the concept of a 'black widow' stabbing her mate somewhat titillating; but she seems an unlikely candidate for such a venomous rôle."

I proceeded to prompt Holmes to tease out the logical processes behind his assertion: "Yet the circumstantial evidence is so strong - the return of her husband from Brazil; the argument with her lover; the fact that she fled the scene before the crime was discovered. If not murder, it could be manslaughter."

"I do not believe that Mrs. Clare stabbed Mr. d'Urberville, in hot blood or cold."

"Convince me."

"Well, Watson, you examined the victim yourself, did you not? And did you not remark that the wound in his chest was _small_?"

"Yes."

"- And yet the knife stolen from the breakfast tray was a _carving-knife_ - the blade of which would surely have inflicted a larger injury?"

"Perfectly true, Holmes - that had occurred to me. But why, then, should someone - the murderer, we presume - remove the carving-knife?"

"If this _were_ indeed an unpremeditated crime of passion, one would _expect_ the murderer to have used the weapon closest to hand, such as the carving-knife. But it was _not_ used. Instead, it was stolen - perhaps for self-defence, or else in an attempt to disguise the fact that this was a murder committed in cold blood, with a less readily available weapon."

"So you believe it was premeditated?"

Holmes rose and began to walk over to the door. "Utterly. What perplexes me, however, is the behaviour of the suspect herself on the morning of the murder... - Ah, Mrs. Brooks!" he said, opening the door so abruptly that she almost fell into the room.

"Mr. Holmes! I was just about tae chap, tae see if you needed -"

I offered her a seat.

"Och no, doctor - it's no' my business -"

Holmes interrupted: "My good woman, you are as much a part of this investigation as Dr. Watson and myself! I was aware that you were listening at the door, and it is only right that you should be involved more openly!"

She sat down between us at the table. "I'm sorry! I dinna usually... But after what's befa'n thon puir laddie... Weel, you're my ainly guests now, and I'm no' haein' you endin' up murdered in your beds!"

"Madam, would you like to help us in a small experiment?"

She swallowed hard. "What sort o' experiment?"

"A simple test. Imagine that, for some reason - perhaps he hasn't paid his bill - you want to kill my friend Dr. Watson!"

"Steady on, Holmes!" I protested.

"One moment- Now, Mrs. Brooks, pick up the letter-knife from the table - as if you were going to stab him with it. Try not to think too deeply about it."

Instinctively, she seized the knife and brandished it over me, the blade pointing downward.

Holmes applauded. "Bravo! A superb performance!"

I sighed with relief as she placed the knife back on the table. "Sae what does _that _prove?" she asked. "Surely you didna think I ?"

"Of course not, but it confirms - does it not, Watson- that the murder could not have been carried out in hot blood, as the police maintain."

Mrs. Brooks sat down. "Can you explain?"

"You were, for the purposes of my experiment, the average untrained British civilian. When you picked up the knife, you did so as most people do - blade downward. This detail often distinguishes the unpremeditated from the premeditated attack: it would be easy enough to disarm you."

"And in this case...?" she began.

Holmes turned to me for an answer. "In this case," I said, "the blade was pointing upward - far more deliberate and dangerous. Especially with a narrow, double-edged blade."

"Sae what I heard you say was true- It _wasna_ my cairving-knife? Leastways that's _one_ thing I canna be blamed for! But what a sleekit quine she maun be!"

"So you still believe she did it?"

"Who else could hae deen it, Mr. Holmes- A quine wi' morals like _that_ - And this a respectable house!"

"Respectability... That is something which concerns you much, does it not, Mrs. Brooks? Why is that?"

Her pale face flushed pink. "Business. A woman in business maun be canny about appearances."

"- As must a sea captain's wife, when her husband is on long voyages, and she is only half his age?"

She gasped. "How did you ?"

Holmes smiled. "Your Amazonian parrot and your armadillo sewing-basket show that he sailed as far as South America. And although your mourning brooch is of a style made some fifteen years ago, the hair within is quite grey."

Mrs. Brooks sighed wearily. "This 'romantic love' the young fowk blether about is haivers - disnae last five minutes! Josh Brooks was a friend o' my faither's - he'd sailed wi' him. When Pa was drount, he helped us. He was a widower, wi' a son at sea aulder nor I. I cam' wi' him doun tae Bristol... He was a steady man. The voyages were lang, but... I was aye a true wife tae him. Betimes I've speired mysel' _why_... Then, when I thocht he was comin' hame for guid, he went and deed..." She tried to laugh: "I'm alane now, but for the bird, and thae airmadilly baskets - I've twa mair in the attic, you ken- He'd no' much imagination..."

Then a trace of bitterness crossed her face: "I've wondered why, for men, virtue's what they _dee_, but for women, it's what they _dinna_... Auld Brooks has said mair tae me deid than when he was alive!

"I used tae dee the rappin' on the wee table in my parlour. There's a mark now where the bluid was - the plaister canna be painted yet... Och, it's an awfu' thing! I didna see it on my goun for hours... But there's aye a smell tae bluid..."

Holmes agreed: "That may explain the tampering with the perfume bottle. Now, let us suppose that Mrs. Clare has just stabbed her lover. She wishes to leave the house to make her escape. She puts on her best hat, with its conspicuous black feathers, and a veil, and picks up her parasol. She descends the staircase in a flamboyant manner - 'like the Queen of Sheba', in your evocative phrase, Mrs. Brooks, and closes the door noisily. Does that sound like a fugitive wishing to escape notice, or like a woman who wishes to attract attention?"

"- But Holmes," I interjected, "surely that would be the best way to allay suspicion - to go out boldly, as if without a care in the world?"

"Perhaps, perhaps... But it troubles me. You accept that the killing was premeditated?"

"Your theory about the carving-knife is the only logical explanation of it," I said. Mrs. Brooks nodded in agreement.

"But is Teresa Clare is capable of cold-blooded murder?"

"Holmes, you yourself have often argued that almost anyone can commit murder, given the motive, means and opportunity!"

"No; the issue is whether _this_ individual could have committed _this_ particular murder. She had been living with the victim as his wife, not altogether unhappily. Could she have stabbed him, and then bedecked herself so gaily while he lay wounded in the very same room? But if it were not Mrs. Clare, then who could have done it? The victim did not try to defend himself - which suggests that he was caught unawares, or that he knew his assailant. Remember: we have to consider motive, means and opportunity... Mrs. Brooks, have you any ideas on the subject?"

Her eyes widened. "Me? I dinna ken much about these things! But... since Mr. d'Urberville was his wife's fancy man, did _Mr._ Clare no' hae a reason?"

"You're starting to think along the right lines, dear lady! But, according to the police, his alibi has already been firmly established. Staff and guests at the hotel where he was staying have confirmed that he was eating breakfast in the dining room at the time when the crime was committed. Of course, he may be involved in some other way, but until he is found, we can only speculate."

"Supposing the woman we saw leaving the building were not Mrs. Clare?" I asked.

"Ah, yes- Mrs. Brooks, you saw her more closely than either of us - could you swear it was she?"

She looked thoughtful. "I had my spectacles on for sewin', and she was wearin' the hat and veil - But they _were_ Mistress Clare's hat and veil - there's nae mistakin' thae feathers. But wha else would be in the chaumer wi'... Och, are _you_ thinkin' what _I_'m thinkin', Mr. Holmes?"

"What are you thinking, madam?"

"It's no' sae nice - speakin' ill o' the deid, but just supposin' he was being visited by a 'woman o' the toun', in a manner o' speakin'? I mean, he was no' sae douce as he seemed, was he, bidin' wi' a mairrit woman? And him sae braw-luikin', and haein' that way wi' him..."

"A ladies' man? Perhaps in the past. But to have invited some harlot... No, I doubt it, given his devotion to Mrs. Clare. There is another possiblity, however. As you said, Mrs. Brooks, the betrayed husband always has a motive; so does the discarded mistress. It might be worth investigating the victim's history."

"How do we go about doing that?" I asked.

Holmes produced a GWR timetable from his inside pocket. "I think we may need to do something rather disagreeable."

"Such as?"

"Venturing into the countryside." Holmes hates the country; he has such a jaundiced view of rural life that I can only think the reason for it lies buried in his own past (he is himself of the squirearchy). "Watson, I think it might be useful if you go up to Trantridge. That was Mr. d'Urberville's home, was it not, Mrs. Brooks?"

"Aye - the papers got that richt! I've still got the letter fae the original buiking - it's prentit at the top. I'm sure it maun hae cost a pretty penny tae get that deen!"

"So I've to go there alone?"

"Not exactly," Holmes replied. "We shall travel together, yet as strangers. While you investigate the victim, I intend to uncover the history of the suspect. Mrs. Clare's family dwell in the same village; I shall pay _them_ a visit... Yet I don't want to arouse suspicion... Mrs. Brooks, do you still have any of your husband's old clothes?"

She frowned. "Why, there's some auld duds in a kist... But whatever for?"

"Was he a tall man?"

"Aye, but Mr. Holmes !"

He sprang up, rubbing his hands together with excitement. "Bring them out, my good woman - they'll need airing! And a spare armadillo, if you can find one! The game is afoot - but as to the sort of game it will be, and the identity of our opponent... that remains to be seen!"

**To be continued.**


	3. Two Queens & a Damosel

**CHAPTER III. **

**TWO QUEENS AND A DAMOSEL**

And thus it was that the following morning both Holmes and myself set out for Trantridge. I was clad in a Norfolk suit, appropriate to the countryside, while he was disguised as a middle-aged master mariner, 'Captain Mycroft', in Joshua Brooks' clothes, a false beard, and his brother's name. Mrs. Brooks had been impressed with the result.

"You'd no' pass for Josh, but maybe for a cousin!" she said. She offered him a watch-chain of finely woven dark hair "for the finishin' touch: a real sailor's keepsake."

Holmes looked from it to the lady herself, whose hair was of a tawny hue, beginning to turn grey. "It is not your colour."

She smiled bleakly. "No - it's Nell's - his first wife's. Josh aye wore it."

* * *

The nearest station was some three miles from our destination. When we arrived, I waited for the local carrier, while Holmes - as befitted his disguise - began to walk.

The carrier tipped his hat to him as we passed him on the road. "I wonder what a sea-farin' man like 'at's doin' in these parts?" he asked, between teeth clenched on a clay pipe.

I shook my head.

"Still," he continued, "there's lots o' strange things goin' on 'ere, sir."

"Indeed?"

"Aye - ain't you 'eard? Just a few days past, the squire's doxy went an' knifed 'im. 'Twas at Sandbourne."

I feigned astonishment. "Good Lord! And has she been arrested?"

"Nobody knows where she be!" He cackled: "But that's what women does!" He then began to regale me with various pieces of folk wisdom against tangling with anything in a petticoat. Holmes probably would have approved.

"Are you not a married man, then?"

"Oh, I 'ave a wife, I 'ave all right! That be my very trouble!"

Eventually he set me down in the market place of a seemingly peaceful village. "This be Trantridge Cross, sir - I goes no further."

I paid him, and asked, as if out of simple curiosity, where the murdered gentleman had lived. He indicated a small road leading out of the village. "'Tis the big place up there - a modern sort of 'ouse, what 'is father 'ad built."

Since the day was fine and sunny, and my old wound from Maiwand little troubles me in such weather, I decided to walk to the Slopes. Along the way I passed a man with a large pot of scarlet paint. He was eyeing up a stretch of storm-bleached wooden fencing.

"How pleasant to see someone thinking of brightening up the landscape!" I remarked, thinking that he intended to paint the shabby fence.

"I work for the glory of God," he answered fiercely, "not to cheer sinners!"

Puzzled, I continued on my way. Presently I reached a charming red-brick gatehouse of fairly modern date. But, although it appeared inhabited, there seemed to be no life within. The wrought-iron gates across the entrance to the drive were padlocked.

Thinking there might be another entrance at some other part of the grounds, I continued, following the line of the boundary walls. Presently, I came upon a labourer digging weeds out of a drainage ditch by the roadside.

"Excuse me, my good fellow, do you know of any other way into the manor?"

He ignored me, bending to uproot a large clump of deeply rooted dandelions.

"Young man?"

The muscular figure turned. "_Woman_," she corrected. For - despite her stature and bulky, masculine garments - her face was that of a handsome country wench, swarthy and weatherbeaten.

"My apologies, madam!"

"There ain't nobody up there," she said, leaning on her spade. "'Tis all locked up, since they went to Sandbourne."

I was perplexed by this curious character. "I - I have just heard that there has been a... bereavement at the manor."

"Aye, you _could_ call it that. Are you police or papers? There's been a few o' them swarmin' round."

"Neither. I'm from London; I had hoped to see Mr. d'Urberville -"

The big woman interrupted, laughing grimly. "You be a resurrection-man?"

"- on City business, but in view of his death... Is there no other family here?"

"There ain't no-one. All dead. The old lady died last year."

"I see."

She began to dig again, hard, as if expending some personal anger upon the hapless weeds. "Poor bastard! 'Tis a bloody shame!" she cursed, hurling aside another spadeful of sodden vegetable matter and mud in my direction. I jumped back to avoid it.

"You knew the deceased gentleman?"

She laughed again, ribaldly: "Like in the Bible! And 'e weren't no gentleman, either!"

"I was acquainted with him. Have you heard what happened?"

She mopped her brow with the back of her glove, and paused. "That Miss Tessy. They say 'twas 'er doin'. But I don't know, though she was always trouble... 'Tis a long story."

"Then I'll not detain you from your work."

"No! I'll call my sister - 'tis time we took a rest!" She clambered through the hedge and halloo'd across the field behind: "Nance! Bring the scrumpy! We got a gentleman 'ere!"

I heard an affirmative response through the clear air. Presently, another figure emerged through the hedge with the first woman. The second was similar in clothing, although fairer of hair and complexion. She clutched a large, corked owl-jug.

"This be my sister, Miss Ann Darch, sir," the dark girl said. "Nance, this be Mr. ?"

"Watson," I replied, dropping my title.

"Oh - and I be Car. 'Tis Caroline of a Sunday."

Nancy uncorked the jug and took a swig.

"'Ere!" remonstrated her sister. "That ain't nice! We got a guest!" And she snatched the jug, wiping the neck of it with her grimy sleeve. "Scrumpy, sir?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Cider!"

I declined the offer. The sisters Darch perched themselves on the edge of the ditch and passed the owl-jug between them. "'My God, 'tis thirsty work!" Nance swore.

Car said, "This Mr. Watson's askin' about Mr. Alec. 'E's a friend of 'is, he says."

"A bad business, that," her sister nodded. "You see, we both _knew_ Mr. Alec pretty well."

"Not at the same time, though," Car added hastily.

"Well, not as a rule," corrected Nancy.

Car sniggered: "Arvest 'Ome in the old days!"

"We were all three just young things then, o' course! But we could tell you a few things about 'er they say's done it, couldn't we, Car?"

"We _could. And_ about 'im."

I eyed them cautiously - a pair of lewd wenches; but talking to them might be useful. "Very well. Tell me what you know."

"You ain't police?" Nance queried.

I assured her that I was not.

"You'll know 'e 'ad quite an eye for the girls. Me and Car most of all: the 'Queen of Diamonds' and the 'Queen of Spades', 'at's us! 'Tweren't long after the old master died. That was a lot for young shoulders to bear, and 'is mother bein' blind, and all. A young boy like 'at needs some freedom!"

Car continued: "Then this Miss Tess come along, all primped up in 'er muslins, thinkin' 'erself better than we, and that she were 'is cousin!"

"- But 'e mowed 'er all the same, down in the Chase!" Nance put in, and they both laughed.

Car swigged back some cider, and sang raucously:

"_So I went till we stayed at a bush,  
We went till we stayed at two,  
And the pretty birds flew in,  
O and you know what I mean.._."

"Were you jealous?" I asked.

She laughed: "Not we, sir! Why, it taught _'er_ for callin' _us_ whores! And for making fun when Grammer's tin o' treacle broke open on me! But" - and here her voice dropped - "after 'er, what chance did any of us 'ave for more than a bit o' fun? Why, 'e 'ad _'er_ livin' like a lady! I do believe 'e loved 'er, the damn fool, and 'er runnin' off and leavin' 'im after a few weeks!"

Nance picked up the story: "That were some four years back - '85, I think... Last time we seen Tess, she's workin' in the fields for that mean old bugger Groby, out by Flintcomb-Ash - she didn't look so pretty then! And Mr. Alec came lookin' for 'er, even though 'e'd gone all Evangelical. 'Tweren't right, 'im goin' Evangelical, not a good-lookin' man like 'at; fair puts you off your Scripture! They say she talked 'im out of it, anyway... But now look what 'e's come to - and she! 'Tis a bad state of things."

"Do you believe she killed him?"

"Why _should_ she? 'E loved 'er, and kept 'er family - 'twould be bitin' the 'and that fed 'er! There was even talk o' _marriage_! Maybe I'm an ignorant woman, sir, but it don't make no sense to me."

"Really?"

"If you want an honest opinion, sir - I think there's other folk guilty, if you take my meanin'."

"Do you think it could have been another woman? A woman he... _wronged_ in the past?"

The sisters laughed. "That ain't 'ow it be in the country!" said Nancy.

"No," Car added. "Why, 'tis only nature! 'Tain't no shame! That's the trouble with you City folks - you make shame of it - like the parsons make it sin!"

Despite the fact that I had not partaken of their cider, I was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable. As a bachelor in the army, I had encountered women with cultural attitudes towards amorous matters which differed greatly from the usual _mores_ of British society. What disturbed me was the fact that these were _English_women, nominally Christian, in the heart of the ostensibly unspoilt English countryside.

"But if there are children..."

Car shook her head at me as if I were an ignorant schoolboy. "There be such things as Motherwort! Grammer says there's a plant for every purpose, and them that don't know's bound to get stung; but for those who do, 'tis soon mended." She was undoubtedly referring to criminal practices.

"And even if there be a child," Nance continued, "'tain't the end o' the world, as long as there be food enough for all."

"- And scrumpy!" her sister added.

"Aye, and scrumpy!... So you see, sir, I think no sane _woman_ would've done it. Plenty o' _men_ jealous, though..."

"Plenty."

Standing in the warm sun in such company was affecting me more severely than I expected. My throat felt constricted, and I tried to slacken my tie.

"'Elp the gentleman loose 'is collar, Car," Nancy grinned wickedly.

I realised that it was time to attempt my escape. I side-stepped, only to slip into the ditch, in mud up to my ankles. The two amazons laughed, but gave me a hand out.

"Thank you, ladies! You've been most helpful!" I said nervously.

Nance smiled: "And you been most entertainin', sir!"

I began to retreat hastily along the road down to the village, but Car stepped in front of me, hands on hips, her expression no longer merry. "Listen, sir, I don't know rightly who or what you be with all your questions, but if _I_ find who done it, I'll kill 'em, man or woman! And if _you_ find 'em, tell 'em the Queen of Spades and the Queen of Diamonds 'ave cursed 'em solemn, oak, ash and thorn! Mind you that, sir!"

Shaken and muddy, I began to return towards Trantridge. I glanced over my shoulder but once to see Nance making a gesture with her hand: not an insult, but a sign against evil. Then she and her sister seemed to blend back into the colours of the landscape. The Queen of Spades and the Queen of Diamonds... I recalled Mrs. Brooks' description of the sanguine Ace of Hearts on her ceiling. But who, in this fatal game of cards, was the dealer? I am not a superstitious man, but of one thing I was certain: the Darch sisters were witches.

Such thoughts were preying upon me as I passed by the painter once more. I saw that he was not renovating the fence, but was instead inscribing words upon it with his blood-red paint.

THE, WAGES, OF, SIN, IS, DEATH

ran the legend thus far.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, "but does this have some bearing on the local tragedy of which I've heard - about young Mr. d'Urberville?"

"An apostate, fornicator and adulterer!" he replied. "By the Lord's mercy, may he burn in everlasting Hell!"

"So you didn't like him?"

"What do you think!"

The strain of meeting the two Queens had shortened my temper, to my own misfortune. "Look, I'm not a theologian, but didn't the Lord take a different view of sinners- And by the way, you _don't _actually need a comma between each word: it's ungrammatical and - "

I was about to say, "and looks untidy", when the text-painter turned on his heel and shook his loaded brush at me, spattering my suit with red. I decided to take no more chances, and trudged muddily back into the village, where I waited at the market cross for the carrier.

* * *

When I eventually returned to Sandbourne, my bedraggled appearance occasioned many stares. I was relieved to reach the peace of The Herons. Mrs. Brooks ordered me to remove my boots before crossing the doorstep. She clucked about my "clairty feet" and the paint on my jacket, and bewailed the general messiness of "young fowk these days", as if I were eight instead of thirty-eight.

After a bath and change of clothing, I retired to our apartment to write to Mary, explaining further the circumstances surrounding my postponed return to London. No doubt Mrs. Brooks was keeping 'our Jessie', as she called Mrs. Hudson, informed.

Holmes did not arrive until evening. He appeared tired, and was only too glad to put aside his disguise. He had evidently left the sewing-basket behind, but had brought back two jars of home-made jam, one of damson and one of crab-apple, which Mrs. Brooks was more than happy to receive in lieu of the spare armadillo. After dinner, he listened to my account of my adventures with the two Queens, which allowed us to reject the 'woman scorned' theory, and my misadventure with the religious fanatic. He then explained to us both the progress of his inquiries.

"It was most enlightening, although it served only to confirm my feelings about the countryside... God knows what goes on there undetected, unsuspected. There may be sinister currents lurking in the most innocent..."

His persona as 'Captain Mycroft' was ostensibly an acquaintance of Mr. Clare's from his time in Brazil, seeking news of his old 'friend' at his wife's family home. The armadillo work-basket was a suitably South American gift for Tess's mother.

Holmes had found Joan Durbeyfield at her home, a neat cottage with a walled garden, evidently recently refurbished after years of neglect. He suspected, from one or two feathers caught under the new whitewash, that it had previously housed poultry. Mrs. Durbeyfield was in her early forties, careworn, but with traces of former beauty. She was respectably clad in mourning, and - less respectably - was somewhat attached to a bottle of gin.

"She has the wit to be alarmed at the precarious position in which Alec d'Urberville's death had placed her and her family," he said. "She has six other children - three girls, three boys, aged between sixteen and five. Like the old woman in the shoe, she doesn't always know where they all are at any one time, but she's a loving mother and is anxious for their future. Since her husband died at the end of March, only d'Urberville's help has saved them from homelessness and beggary. Their house is his property."

"That is most unfortunate," I commented.

Mrs. Brooks was concerned. "Sae what'll befa' them now?"

"That depends on the fate of the whole estate: he has no living relatives in this part of the country. He was drawing up papers to secure her rights to the cottage, but the solicitor had not finalised the wording before this unforeseen calamity. She says there's been no word yet from the firm, so she's hoping that all may be well."

"I maun see if there's onythin' I can gie her - for hersel' or the bairns... Puir sowl!"

"She _was_ rather taken with the armadillo," Holmes said drily. "She had no notion that such a creature existed on God's earth!"

"I'll try tae fin' somethin' mair useful for her."

Holmes went on to describe his conversation with Mrs. Durbeyfield. The poor woman had apologised for drinking, explaining that it was on account of her distress, since the family's two bereavements. As she drank a little more, she became more open about the domestic situation. She said that she had heard that Mr. Clare had paid for her husband's tombstone, but added that he has never fed the living. Altogether, she spoke very bitterly of him, given his abandonment of her daughter and the consequences of his return.

"She said that the girl should never have placed her faith in such a man, 'for he was as constant as the moon, and twice as cold' - her very words," Holmes said. "These people have a heathenish poetry of their own."

The mother hoped that the fugitives would soon be caught: "I don't see why Tess should have done such a thing, unless that so-called husband of hers put her up to it. 'Twas a cruel thing to visit on us all," she had said, "for we had no other provider than Mr. Alec." Apparently Mr. Clare's parents were offering them charity, but until the facts of the case were established she was understandably reluctant to regard them as friends.

"At least that means we can rule out Tess's family, anyway - bread being more important than honour to them," I said.

"- To the mother," Holmes interjected. "And the younger children are unhappy - they know that their benefactor is dead and that their sister's life is in danger, but, of course, they are too innocent to know the full reasons. The eldest girl, Eliza-Louisa - 'Liza-Lu, as these barbarians call her, does understand - and she is very bitter about the whole affair."

"How old is she?"

"About sixteen, I should think."

I nodded. "A difficult age. And her father is also not long dead, as you said. Adolescents can show grief in curious ways."

"It is true that she has been affected by her father's death, but this latest tragedy... She does not grieve over that," said Holmes.

He described 'Liza-Lu as a highly-strung young girl, lanky, still more child than woman, with a sharpness and intensity in her features which heightened the impression that she was more a creature of the spirit than her corporeal, fallen sister. She had been most delighted to have the opportunity to talk to 'Captain Mycroft' when she learned that he was a friend of Mr. Clare's, for whom she bore a high degree of respect.

"Don't listen to what Mother says - she's a foolish, drunken old woman," the girl had advised Holmes. "I share a bed with her, save when she's been at the gin, so that's most nights lately I've slept in the kitchen chair. She should be glad we've been freed from disgrace! None o' this would've happened if Father had lived. We may be poor, but we won't be living on Tess's whoring any more."

"That's a harsh judgement," Holmes had parried, "with a young man dead, and your sister in danger!"

But 'Liza-Lu had not been moved, and had only muttered: "Maybe death would be cruel for some, but for that one, 'tis justice, for all that he was young and handsome. Why, even the devil was handsome when he was young."

At this point I interrupted Holmes' narrative with a cry of "What an insensitive child!"

"She is a stern moralist, and not unintelligent. She has been catching up on her schooling and wants to become a teacher. She said Tess had harboured such ambitions at one time, before she was seduced by Alec d'Urberville. '_She mix'd her ancient blood with shame_', she said."

"That's fae a poem! I'm sure o' it!" said Mrs. Brooks.

"Yes - when I asked her if that was a quotation, she said she liked Tennyson."

"I canna mind which... It's a while since I read ony o' his..."

My colleague continued. "I asked her how she would afford to continue her education now Mr. d'Urberville was dead. She said she hoped that her mother would not be so stupid as to spurn the Clares' help: 'They're virtuous people, not like Mr. Alec,' she said. She cannot have conversed with Mr. Clare, so I can only assume that her high opinion of him derives from her sister."

I remarked that 'Liza-Lu probably envied Tess - her beauty, her fine clothes, her wealthy lover. No doubt her uncharitable morality was her way of rationalising her jealousy. One thing perplexed me: "What did she mean by 'ancient blood'?"

"This is most interesting, Watson. According to 'Liza-Lu, her family are the _real_ d'Urbervilles - Durbeyfield simply being a rustic corruption of the name - and, as I suspected, the victim's claim to the name is of recent date. She is a proud little Norman damosel, who believes that her sister has degraded the family still further."

"_A proud hert in a puir breist has meikle dule tae dree_, as my mither said!" said Mrs. Brooks.

Holmes looked puzzled. "I beg your pardon?"

She translated, paraphrasing the original: "If you're puir and proud, it'll bring you sorrow."

"Do you think you could find that line of Tennyson for me, Mrs. Brooks?" he asked.

"I'll try," she replied. "And I maun help that puir woman and her bairns! It's bad eneuch losin' her man, but then this business wi' her dochter and her fancy man... Wha'd be a mither...?"

**To be continued.**


	4. An Interview with the Prisoner

**CHAPTER IV.**

**AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PRISONER**

The following morning marked the passage of exactly a week since the shocking crime downstairs. Our inquiries, like those of the police, had begun to develop, but the absence of the chief suspect and her husband had protracted what should have been a short investigation.

However, while Holmes and I had breakfast, Mrs. Brooks knocked on the door of our rooms: "There's a telegram for you fae Melchester!" And she held out the envelope.

Holmes opened it. "You haven't read it?" he asked.

"I've ne'er sunk tae that. Besides, I've no' got my spectacles on."

"Well, it's progress - of a kind. The Clares were arrested at daybreak at Stonehenge, on charges of breaking and entering at Bramshurst Court. But Mrs. Clare has confessed."

Mrs. Brooks was puzzled: "Does that mean you were wrang, Mr. Holmes?"

"Not necessarily. People are not always guilty of crimes to which they confess."

"That disnae mak' sense. Why should she ? Och, maybe I should just speir at the victim!"

Holmes gave her a strange look, then re-read the telegram. "Melchester Court-House... It would seem that the suspects will probably be charged in Melchester and held there until trial. A major trial will mean the Crown Court in Wintoncester... Have we enough time...?"

"Eneuch time for what?" asked Mrs. Brooks.

"To obtain the evidence we need! Watson, take the first train to Melchester! You have the gift for dealing with emotional females," he said.

I winced, recalling my previous day's ordeal with the Darch sisters.

"Besides, as a doctor, it should be simpler for you to obtain a private interview, without police or warders eavesdropping."

"And what of you?"

"I shall be pursuing _other_ lines of inquiry here in Sandbourne... The local constabulary have engaged my services _sub rosa_."

* * *

On the journey, I began to turn over the shocking events of the past week: a seemingly respectable young couple revealed to be an adulterous liaison; a calm seaside lodging house the scene of a bloody murder. There were those significant incongruities, too: between the wound and the ostensible weapon; between the alleged murderess' concealing veil and the conspicuousness of her departure. And what of the elusive Angel Clare?

Melchester is not so much a city as a charming town with a large mediæval cathedral. The tall sharp spire - the tallest in England - dominates the whole, piercing the sky like a fine-bladed dagger...

A porter gave me directions to the court, in the cells of which Mrs. Clare was being held, pending trial. I told the police officer in charge that I was her doctor in Sandbourne, and showed him my card.

"I'm glad you're here sir; we were worried that the young woman might be so minded as to harm herself, since 'tis thought she's a bit touched in the head."

That did not sound like the 'Mrs. d'Urberville' of my acquaintance. I hid my shock, and said only, "Quite."

I was fortunate enough to be permitted a private interview. A provincial court-house cell is not the best place to meet a lady. The elegant young Tess d'Urberville of The Herons, with her curves and rosy colour, had faded into Teresa Clare, prisoner - wan and worn, in ill-fitting grey charity clothes.

"Dr. Watson! I am pleased to see you!" she said, with a heart-breaking ghost of her old smile. But for those lips, she might have passed for a Quaker girl, her dark brown curls straying from under the linen cap.

"My dear Mrs. d'Ur - Mrs. Clare! How are they treating you here?"

"Well enough," she sighed, sitting down on the narrow cot. "Though they won't let me have a looking glass for fear I might harm myself - but for what? They charged me with breaking and entering, but I've confessed already. I'm glad they took those fancy clothes from me, for examining. They were what _he_ bought me."

"You have confessed to _murder_? _Not_ manslaughter?"

"Murder. That is best - I shall die for it... I confessed," she repeated, as if to reassure herself of the fact.

"But are you guilty?'

"Everything I touch I destroy. It began with my father's horse... Then my little boy... Everything dies on me. And now Alec. This way there'll be no more of it."

"You mean you killed him?"

"I had to be free of him, doctor, to be free of what _he_'d made me become. I couldn't let Angel walk away without me again."

Her mind_ is_ gone, I thought. She seemed dazed, yet curiously rational in her irrationality.

"Do you know what this is about? My husband, my true, loving husband, left me on our honeymoon without... becoming my husband in the flesh. He left because, years ago, when I was young, Alec d'Urberville seduced me."

"Seduced - or worse?" I asked: as a doctor, I know how some women are ashamed to admit to having been violated.

"It just - was. I was cold and frightened, needed comforting... We were in The Chase... They say it's the oldest wood in England... Things happen in the wildwood - _if you know what I mean_..."

Enigmatically, she was almost smiling. _You know what I mean_... Her words reminded me of the Queen of Spades. Tess had been arrested at Stonehenge; there was something deeply pagan about her, also. Her dead lover had told me that she could speak the language of birds... I recalled that _paganus_ literally means a rustic: were all these rural sirens witches? A shiver ran down my spine, and suddenly I felt hot.

"Maybe I was beguiled too easy... We had a few weeks together, then I left him. You couldn't call it love - not on my side, anyway. A kind of hunger... I bore a son, but he didn't live... When I told Angel, he didn't want me - because I wasn't pure, he said. And _he_'d told _me_ what he'd done in London, with some trollop! I said 'twas the same, but he said not... Oh, I wanted to die then! I even thought of killing myself - of hanging myself, like the mistletoe over our bed! He said I wasn't the woman he'd married - that she was dead. He sleep-walked with me, and laid me in a stone coffin - that's how much he believed it. Then he went to Brazil... Later I heard he'd asked my friend Izz to go with him, but she refused.

"I - Well, times got worse - I was labouring for Farmer Groby. Alec tempted me then, but I'd have none of him; then Father died, and we lost our home... That was on Old Lady Day, last month. Alec said my husband would never come back. He promised he'd give my family a home, send the children to school. He was always there, so I... You know what I did.

"Then the other morning, Angel came back and found me, and told me he'd repented! I wept - he was so broken down, I thought he was dying - for me, for my sin that had driven him away..."

"And that is why you killed your lover?" I asked.

"Alec asked why I was crying. I told him I knew now he'd lied to me - saying I was foolish even to hope my husband would return; that he'd deceived me to win me back again; that his helping my mother had been a ruse, too, to trap me... He lost his temper."

For a moment I wondered if she was going to imply that she had acted in self-defence, but no. "He said I'd be a fool to run after a man who'd already cast me off once! That Angel was a 'self-pitying, bloodless hypocrite' - his words exactly - and that I'd only humiliate myself by crawling back to him..." She raised her head and there was a cruel note of scorn in her voice: "He even said he _loved_ me! Can you believe that?"

"And that was why you killed him?"

"He insulted my husband - called him names you wouldn't give a dog."

"So you stabbed him?"

She hesitated. "I was in a rage. I finished dressing and went out."

Her apparent callousness perturbed me: it did not belong to the haunted yet lovely young woman I remembered from The Herons. "You finished dressing in the same room as a dying man?"

"He had no right to keep me from my husband! No right! Why are you taking his side?"

"When murder has been committed, it is not unusual to pity the victim."

"_Victim_? I was the victim!"

"I'm speaking as the doctor in attendance," I said flatly. I liked her too much to believe that her charm hid the cold heart of a common harlot.

She averted her gaze, and the uncharacteristic harshness faded for a moment, like the temporary slipping of a mask. "Oh... You saw...? I wasn't told that."

"Mrs. Clare - Tess - how did it happen?"

"There was a knife on the breakfast tray - with the ham. A carving-knife... I must've picked it up... I'm not sorry."

The carving-knife - which I knew could not have been the real killer's weapon. "You mean you do not remember actually striking the blow?"

"It wasn't a big wound... I tried to stop the blood with my hand..."

"Alec's?"

"No, Prince, our old horse's... That's what started it... Years ago. I can't remember - it must be the shock. My soul travels out of my body sometimes... Perhaps I was out of it when I killed him."

"You have suffered some grave shocks recently, that is certain... And your confession - Is it possible that your mind - your memory - has been affected in that, also?"

Again, she denied it. "That's what my husband says. He thought I'd gone mad when I said what I'd done."

"Where is your husband?"

"Gone. He knew nothing. They're not even charging him for Bramshurst Court, where we hid together... They let him go. He didn't believe I'd truly done it till the police came for me at Stonehenge."

Strange, I thought - surely he could have been charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive? But this was rural England, not London, and Tess's Angel - however fallen - was a clergyman's son. The old social order of parson and squire was still intact in these parts.

"Ought he not be near you?"

"I asked him to look after my family - our 'Liza-Lu most of all... I'm sure he will. I hope he'll marry her. He _is_ a good man, Dr. Watson."

I could not admit my reservations about her judgement. She was leaning forward, her eyes - long-lashed and of strangely mutable colour - wide yet vague, her ample bosom heaving within the too-tight grey gown. Alec d'Urberville had been right about one thing, at least: what man worthy of the name would abandon such a woman for the perils of South America on account of a sudden attack of selfish morality?

Such thoughts were jolted from me by the rasping of the cover of the grille in the door: "Five more minutes, doctor!"

"Tess - if you are innocent as I believe, you must save yourself!"

"Why? I used to think, Once a victim, always a victim, but now ! I'm not sorry, you know - not about Alec! He - he made me a bad woman..."

"You are _not_ a bad woman!"

Once more, guilt shadowed her face. "I was his woman in the flesh and Angel's in law - that's sin enough. And even before... _Good_ women don't take pleasure in it, do they?"

"Tess - I'm a doctor; I'm also married, quite contentedly - and, believe me, that is nonsense! If you are happy with someone, whatever you have been taught you ought to feel -"

"But if he were not my husband?"

"That is a question for a priest or a lawyer, not a doctor."

"Do _you_ think I'm wicked, then?"

"Did you _love_ him?"

She flinched physically at the question, again looking away from me. "No, I didn't. I _couldn't_. Don't ask that!"

"Tess, this is what you must think about if you stand by this confession of yours. When you go to trial, you shall be publicly cross-examined on _every_ aspect of your past. There will be questions about your lover, your baby, your marriage, the reasons for your husband's desertion, your life at Sandbourne. Everything will be scrutinised. The yellow press will feed on each morsel of scandal. Your family will be spared nothing. You say you killed Alec d'Urberville to redeem your honour? By the time the courts and the newspapers have finished with you, you will have no honour. And whether guilty of murder or not, you will be found guilty, because British juries and British judges show scant mercy to women who commit adultery. Think of Mrs. Maybrick's case - locked up for life, though Holmes is sure she is innocent! Or you may hang... "

"So be it," she said, squaring her shoulders.

"_No_," I insisted. "It does not have to be! I beg you - think about it. A man who loved you is dead, and while you remain here, his assailant is still free."

The grating opened again. "Time's up, doctor."

"Please, Tess!"

"It was kind of you to visit me, doctor."

"Goodbye, then," I said curtly.

She faltered. "If - if I - Doctor, if there's anything else I need to get in touch with you about...?"

"I'm still at The Herons. Please think about what I've said."

The constable on duty waved the keys. "Come along now, sir." Behind me, he locked the cell door upon Tess Clare.

I made my way to an ancient hostelry, The Haunch of Venison, where I obtained a meal. Then I returned to the railway station, and commenced my journey back to Sandbourne. I had to change trains, and there was a delay on the line called by straying cattle, and so it was evening before I neared the elegant seaside town.

I reflected on what Tess had told me, and hoped that, in her cell, she was dwelling as much upon my words. Courts are usually harder on a woman accused of killing a man than on a man who kills a woman; and a pretty girl with a colourful reputation was especially vulnerable... As Mrs. Brooks had bitterly observed, virtue for a woman is seen in purely negative terms: what she has _not_ done. Yet there was no doubt in my mind that what Tess Clare had _not_ done was the stabbing of her lover. The missing carving-knife was a red herring, not the murder weapon. And yet Mrs. Brooks, Holmes and I had seen her - or her double - leaving the house after the murder to which she had confessed. I recalled Holmes' observation about the recently-opened perfume bottle in the bedroom, and wished that her original clothing had not been taken from her... I doubted whether the Melchester police would be as thorough as my learned colleague in their forensic examinations.

Somehow the key to the case lay in that tormented triangular relationship between Tess and her two young men: the late Alec d'Urberville and the living but elusive Angel Clare.

* * *

I was seized with a violent attack of sneezing on entering the dining room at The Herons. The long table was covered with a sheet. Upon it, and under the flickering gasolier and the beady eyes of Rio in his cage, Mrs. Brooks was cleaning a boxful of books and toys. They had evidently been in storage in the attic, and were covered in dust.

"Sae you visited the quine? Did she say onythin' about wha's tae pay the bill?"

"I daresay Mr. d'Urberville's estate will take care of the matter," I replied, as soon as I had regained my breath. "What are you doing?"

"Just sortin' some things for Mistress Durbeyfield's bairns. Mr. Holmes is up in his chaumer, readin'."

I picked up a volume of fairy tales. "The children will probably be delighted! Where did you find all these?"

"They've been packed awa' these one-and-twenty years. Mr. Holmes helped me fetch them doun."

I opened the book: there was an inscription in the neat hand adults use when writing for children: 'For Davie, with dearest love from Mama, Christmas 1868'. Another - _Æsop's Fables_ - was inscribed similarly 'For Ketty'.

Mrs. Brooks glanced up from dusting a wooden lion from Noah's Ark. "You understand," she said quietly. It was a statement, not a question.

"Your children?"

"January 1869. Brain-fever. What you doctors ca' meningitis... You doctors were nae use... They're buried in Bristol. Josh was aff Valparaiso when it happened. I've a stepson livin' - Nell's lad - aulder nor I. He went tae New Bedford, wi' the whalin'; owns his ain ships now. But he disnae write."

"I'm so very sorry."

She shrugged. "It's best if yon puir bairns get some joy o' these. They've scarce been played wi'."

"I'm sure they will be much appreciated."

"Aye. But it fashes me! Thon quine! The matter o' the ceilin': it cost money tae get the plaisterer... And the floor. And the sheets... Guid linen's no' cheap... And the laddie left naked and bleedin' in his bed... In _my_ bed - _my_ sheets!" As her emotions slipped from her control, so the toy animal slipped from her fingers and fell on to the covered table with a dull thud. "You need a man that's gaein' tae be there - no' in bluidy South America!" she swore. Then her usual stoicism reasserted itself. "Och, I'm sorry, doctor..."

"I _do_ understand."

"There's a cauld supper for you up in your chaumer," she said brusquely. "We thocht you'd be hame sooner."

I sensed that she wanted to be left alone, perhaps to weep a little over her cobwebbed treasures while she prepared them for other small hands, and over the tragic irony of a woman preferring an absent husband to a constant lover, when she herself had had no such choice.

The following day, we held a 'council of war' around the table in the rear parlour, beneath the pink smudge of fresh plaster which had replaced the sinister bloodstain. Mrs. Brooks made a large pot of tea and some sandwiches, filled with Joan's apple jam. I related to the others the whole of my meeting with Tess, and the content of our interview. Holmes listened quietly, smoking.

But Mrs. Brooks was baffled. "Why should she confess if she's no' guilty?"

"She seems to have a psychological problem - a tendency to feel personally culpable for all misfortunes which befall her. 'Once a victim, always a victim', she said," I replied.

"Haivers! I'd hae thocht fae the luik o' her she'd mair backbane nor that! A sonsie big quine, wi' a sound heid on her shouthers!"

Holmes drew on his pipe. "It's not a question of intelligence, dear lady, but of individual perception. The study of such matters - what scientists call 'psychology' - is still in its infancy, but I foresee it may yet prove useful in cases such as this one. Dr. Watson's account suggests that Mrs. Clare is simultaneously in the grip of an obsessive passion for her husband and of an overwhelming sense of guilt. It is as if she is in love with suffering; as if she believes that she deserves punishment."

"I dinna understand it! I've seen it afore - though no' sae bad - for in this wark you're aye meetin' fowk o' a' kinds - and when we stayed in Bristol. It's aye women - they think they're no' guid eneuch for even the warst o' men! As if men had nae minds or consciences o' their ain! And there's men that'll play on it - like thon husband of hers, runnin' aff tae stravaig around Brazil! If _he_ thinks _she_'s no' guid eneuch for him, that's _his_ problem - _she_ disnae hae tae believe it! Suppose she had gaun and hanged hersel' on their honeymoon? Would he've lost ony sleep? Or would he've just run aff wi' her wee friend- It's _him_ she should hae thocht o' hangin'!"

"I must confess," admitted Holmes, "that Mr. Clare's character remains an enigma to me. His wife's emotional devotion to him - regardless of her physical infidelity, which seems to have been financially motivated - seems excessive in the light of his shabby treatment of her."

I was inclined to agree. "This is a perplexing case: it has as many layers as an onion, and goes back some years into the past."

"You said he laid her in a stone coffin, didn't you, Watson?"

"Yes - while sleep-walking, Tess said."

Holmes snorted. "Sleep-walking! I do not believe... Gothick mummery! And he refused to consummate the marriage... Ruskin, Watson - what do you remember about John Ruskin?"

"Writer, critic, artist -" I began.

"The divorce case! I wonder if our Mr. Clare takes a Ruskinian view of women - an extreme idealisation which cannot cope with their physical reality?"

I shrugged. "They were on the run together for a week; and although Tess didn't say so outright, I suspect he may have made up for lost time then."

"When he thocht she'd killed the ither chiel? And after that coffin business - Och, that's a gey queer state o' things! What sort o' a man...?" And she shuddered involuntarily. "Are you _sure_ he's got a proper alibi?"

Holmes nodded. "It's one of the few certainties in this case. His cadaverous appearance was so distinctive that everyone at his hotel vividly remembers seeing him in the dining-room. But I should still like to speak with him... or rather, 'Captain Mycroft' would! He may be able to furnish us with clues to what this is really about."

"Tess told me it was about her honour," I said. "But she has let her past dishonour at the victim's hands blind her to his later constancy, while her infatuation with her husband leads her to accept his dishonourable behaviour as proof of and judgement on her own worthlessness. And the notion that honour can be restored by murder - well - it simply isn't cricket!"

"It certainly isn't very _British_ - at least, not by modern standards," Holmes concurred. I could see that his mind was turning over the matter, as if 'Captain Mycroft''s next foray into the investigation was already taking shape.

"I suppose we must hope, too, that the girl comes to her senses. She is still suffering from shock; she did not seem to be herself."

"How so?"

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say she reminded me of a patient emerging from a delirium or a mesmeric trance. Also, there used to be something very open about her expression, but now it's as if she finds it hard to look anyone in the eye. She is denying her emotions - as if she wants to be condemned as a harlot and murderess. But the fact that she still believes that the carving-knife was used proves her innocence."

"It is most curious," Holmes observed, "how a guilty conscience about one matter may prompt someone to confess to another, of which he or she is innocent. Tess Clare - for whatever cause - is clearly as susceptible to guilt as she is to the warmer emotions. She feels it as keenly for the death of a horse as for her irregular personal affairs; and I suspect that it is her guilt at her adultery which compels her to confess falsely to murder. Mesmerism, you said- That is interesting..."

I shook my head. "Perhaps some enthusiastic constable inadvertently played on her suggestibility. I cannot seem to find any logic in this case."

"There _is_ no logic to it, Watson - which is why affairs of the heart hold no attraction for me. Once this love business takes hold, people become slaves to primal emotions, of which guilt is but one. If we are to help the girl, she must regain some sense of moral proportion."

"_Moral proportion_!" sniffed Mrs. Brooks indignantly, and she glanced up at the patch of pink plaster on the ceiling. "She's just plain _thrawn_! Fancyin' thon peengie Angel cratur mair nor a braw, bonnie de'il like Mr. d'Urberville! And him in love wi' her! If I'd kent thirty years back what I ken now... But we're aye wiser after."

"You speak from experience?" Holmes asked.

"I was mairrit tae a man that loved a deid wife, and was as guid as deid tae me for a' the time we had thegither. I ken how it maun hae been for thon puir lad - him lovin' her, and her still thinkin' on the loun that had left her. If I'd kent then what I ken now, I'd no' hae mairrit the man I did."

"Then why do you try to communicate with your late husband?"

She smiled. "Revenge: sae that when he's wi' _her_, it's _me_ he's thinkin' of. Whether it's true or no', I dinna ken - maybe it _is_ just this shoogly table leg that taps..." - and she demonstrated by shifting one of the gatelegs with her foot - "but I aye feel better for it."

Holmes looked as if an idea had occurred to him, but said nothing.

**To be continued.**


	5. The Further Adventures of 'Captain Mycro...

**CHAPTER V. **

**THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF 'CAPTAIN MYCROFT'**

The following morning, Holmes attired himself again as 'Captain Mycroft', to return to Trantridge. He was not happy about venturing into the country alone: "Give me the city any time, Watson - modern, noisy, dirty, with its own madnesses, no doubt - but madnesses one can comprehend," he said. Nevertheless, he set out with some optimism that the results of the visit would help bring the case towards a swift conclusion. He took with him Mrs. Brooks' toys and books for the little Durbeyfields.

She smiled wistfully as he bore them off: "They were made for use."

I passed the day by walking in the Lower Gardens by the Bourne stream, and, when a shower passed over, returned to play Piquet with Mrs. Brooks - no mean hand at cards. I can only reflect that I am heartily glad that no money was at stake. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant enough, albeit temporary, distraction from the strain of the case. In idle moments, I still found myself worrying about Tess, and hoping that she would see the folly of sacrificing herself to protect - whom?

Holmes returned in time for dinner, after which the three of us remained at table to discuss today's progress.

"Was your suspicion correct?" I asked. "Was_ he_ there?"

"Yes, he was. Most fascinating..."

Holmes described the scene which had greeted him at Trantridge earlier in the day. Joan Durbeyfield had welcomed 'Captain Mycroft' in; she was sober, but evidently somewhat flustered. She explained that Mr. Clare had arrived the previous evening, and was staying with the family until Tess's situation was resolved "one way or another".

When Holmes entered the cottage parlour, he found the hitherto elusive gentleman beguiling the children with tales of adventure in South America. He was as Mrs. Brooks described - gaunt and hollow-eyed from disease, yet seemingly recovered, despite his death-like appearance.

"He was quite taken in by my disguise," Holmes said proudly. "He said he couldn't quite place me, but decided that must be because we had met at the Dom Sebastião - a dockside dive in Rio. When he first arrived in Brazil, he took to drowning his sorrows there. Hence he remembers very little of the early days."

"Very fortunate for you."

"Were the bairnies pleased with their gifts?" Mrs. Brooks asked earnestly.

"Delighted! But their mother decided against giving them everything at once, however - she said she didn't want them to expect that they would always get presents whenever anyone died. She seemed rather discomfited by her son-in-law's presence. I think she resented the way he had the little ones fawning around him; she blames him for what has happened to Tess."

"Guid for her!"

Holmes agreed. "But he gave the impression of repenting his desertion of his wife, and the fact that his return had so unhinged her as to drive her to crime. Did she strike you as unhinged, Watson?"

"Distraught, prey to guilt - but I would not venture to judge her sanity. It seems to me that she is still struggling to come to terms with the shock of these events. She does not seem herself."

My colleague lit his pipe. "Mr. Clare believes that temporary insanity is the only logical explanation - but that it will not stand up in court, not with his wife's past. He seems resigned to her fate, unable - or unwilling - to challenge it. He's more than a little concerned for what her revelations will do to his own reputation."

"So he's no knight-errant! But then, she had taken up with Alec d'Urberville again..."

"That's true. You know, Mr. Clare is a determined rationalist. When we began to 'reminisce' about Brazil, he revealed some knowledge of the superstitions rife there. He shares my distaste for such things. Indeed, he found it refreshing to find a seaman who was not superstitious: he said he was reminded of his boyhood hero, Peter the Great."

"A murderous tyrant? An odd choice of hero for a man of his moral probity!"

"On the contrary; strength of will is something which he esteems highly, and he referred admiringly to the Czar working in the shipyards. I believe he sees his own past venture into dairy work in a similar light. - As to Brazil, he had to admit that he found the effects of the popular religion there rather impressive."

"Are they no' a' Papists?" Mrs. Brooks asked. "That's what my man said they were."

Holmes hesitated. "Catholicism is the official religion. However, as in Haiti and Cuba, the slave population retained its own African tribal practices and grafted them on to a form of Christianity. In Haiti, this is called 'Voudou', in Cuba, 'Santería', and in Brazil, 'Candomblé'. Mr. Clare said that when he fell ill, he was nursed back to health by an old slave woman in Curitiba. Through her, he had opportunity to observe some of the Candomblé rites: trance, _et cetera_. He was singularly contemptuous of the practitioners, but what struck him was their reliance upon the power of suggestion."

"As in mesmerism?" I interjected.

"Yes. He says that he should like to write a monograph on the subject one day. I told him that I doubted it would be widely read," Holmes added disdainfully.

"Really! There is room for other authors of learned monographs, you know!"

Holmes laughed. "I have my pride- Besides, would it not be rather a vain occupation for a man who ought to be trying to save his wife from the gallows?"

"She adores him," I said.

He nodded sadly. "He says he _pities_ her. And 'Liza-Lu worships _him_ - young girls do admire brave travellers from distant lands."

"Tess says she hopes he'll marry her, but wouldn't that be illegal?"

"Unless the Holman-Hunts and their sympathisers win out... If not, they would have to go abroad. In other circumstances, it would have been almost amusing to see the way they sit together talking - she gazing up at him, and he humouring her with tales of exotic places. Of course, she's still very young; one hopes she may outgrow the infatuation."

"_She loved me for the dangers I had passed;  
And I loved her that she did pity them_," I quoted.

"Othello strangled his wife with his bare hands - he didn't let the common hangman do it for him!" Holmes puffed at his pipe. "You know, at first I thought I _ought_ to like Angel Clare... He is clever, courteous, and seemed truthful, but - He has an intellectual detachment which is quite reptilian in its cold-bloodedness. It is the way he seems able to distance himself from his wife's plight, the way he is able to dissect her alleged mental collapse, as if she were some sort of experiment... There's an absence of heart at the heart of his reasoning. And he's utterly egocentric - one just has to watch how he basks in 'Liza-Lu's attention."

I recognised some of these traits. "Do you think he would make a _great detective_?"

Holmes threw me a sardonic look. "Point taken. But he lacks deductive power. He is a clergyman's son, of lapsed faith. He has the mind for textual exegesis of the most minute kind - yet cannot grasp the wider picture. Your account of his maltreatment of his wife - the stone coffin episode and so on - fits exactly. He is fastidious on some levels, yet psychologically cruel. For all his boasted repentance, I should not be surprised if he were to throw her second 'fall' back at her - if she lives."

"But whatever maks lassies fancy him?" Mrs. Brooks asked, incredulous.

"To girls of simple background, culture and learning," he suggested. "Romance instead of more earthy passions. Refined manners."

"Refined cruelty, mair like!" she exclaimed. "Stane coffins! And he had the bare-faced cheek tae come back here, beggin' pairdon! I maun gie his wife a guid talkin' tae when she gets out! And him a guid kickin' if he sets foot in my house again!"

I asked if there were any likelihood that we should meet Mr. Clare. Holmes responded that he had made some indication that he would be visiting Sandbourne the day after next, having secured police permission to remove some of his wife's belongings from the scene of the crime.

"Does he know where you are staying?" I asked.

"No, but it would not be strange if 'Captain Mycroft' were to be calling on the widow of an old friend, would it not, Mrs. Brooks?"

She smiled slyly. "That's a gey canny ploy, Mr. Holmes! Would you like me tae put on a tea for him?"

"Actually, I was thinking rather of testing Mr. Clare's rationalism with your tea-table..."

I was shocked. "A mock-séance? Heavens, Holmes, isn't that rather ? I mean, under the circumstances... disrespectful?"

"Shakespeare, Watson. You recalled _Othello_; but what of _Hamlet_ -

_The play's the thing  
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king_?"

Mrs. Brooks looked apprehensive: "I've no' deen the like o' this afore, Mr. Holmes."

"Did you not say yourself that the effect might simply be produced by the action of your foot moving the table-leg from its proper position?"

"Aye, but..." She paused, then nodded firmly. "Strictly in the interests o' the investigation, and meanin' nae disrespect to them that's crossed the Bar?"

"You have my word. Have you had any luck with the Tennyson?"

"I canna spend the day readin' poetry, as much as I'd like tae! But you ken, when I first saw thon Mr. Angel, luikin' like a walkin' corpse, he minded me o' _Jamie Harris_."

"Jamie Harris? Who is he?" he asked, alertly.

"It's no' a 'wha', it's a 'what'. A ballad. There's a woman, mairrit tae a ship-cairpenter. Seven years past, she'd loved a sailor, Jamie Harris, but when she heard he was drount, she mairrit the ither man. One day, Jamie Harris comes speirin' for her, and tempts her awa' fae her husband and bairns. She gaes aboard his ship, but then she finds out he's a ghaist, or a demon, and he sinks the ship tae droun her for breakin' o' her auld vows tae him."

Holmes snapped his fingers: "Of course! We've been looking at this case the wrong way round!"

"Can you explain?" I asked.

"We've been working under the assumption that Alec d'Urberville was the intended victim. But what if the criminal's chief intention was to kill Tess Clare?"

"It's _possible_ that the stabbing took place just _after_ we saw her leave. But do you mean that he was simply killed in her stead, because she had gone?"

"No; it is more subtle than that. I believe that someone wanted her dead, but without doing the deed in person. What better way than to kill her lover, and cast the blame on her? As you told her, Watson, an English court will not deal kindly with a woman of doubtful morality - so that even on circumstantial evidence it would be likely that she would hang."

"You mean the laddie was killed just as a means tae an end? Tae lay the wyte on her?" Mrs. Brooks was appalled.

"That makes it murder and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice!" I said.

"I cannot yet close my net on the guilty party - or parties," Holmes continued. "There's no point in trying to counter one set of circumstantial evidence with another. The séance could be fruitful. But for the present let us keep that particular Ace up our sleeve. It would be so much simpler if Tess Clare were to tell us the truth... That pretty neck of hers wouldn't suit a Newgate Necktie."

I nodded. "I hope I managed to get through to her. She's a strange girl, but it doesn't surprise me that she's had two men competing for her favours."

"Are you smitten, Watson?" he teased.

"I'm a happily married man, Holmes!" I protested. "But she _is_ a stunner!"

**To be continued.**


	6. A Pure Woman & Her Conscience

**CHAPTER VI.**

**A PURE WOMAN AND HER CONSCIENCE**

The morning brought another telegram - this time a terse message from Melchester Court-House, urgently requesting my attendance upon the prisoner.

"Can she be ill?" Holmes wondered.

"I pray not. Let us hope it means that she has thought over her situation."

I set off for Melchester immediately. Holmes decided that his time would be better spent briefing Mrs. Brooks about his plans for Angel Clare's visit and the séance.

* * *

Tess looked as if she had hardly slept since I had last seen her, and yet her mind seemed clearer, more coherent.

"I've withdrawn my confession," she said.

I was astonished. "Good God! Have you told your solicitor?'

She nodded.

"Why, Tess? What made you change your mind?"

She lowered her gaze. "After you'd gone, doctor, I thought about what you'd said. I thought about it hard. You were right. My mind was clouded by the shock of it all..." She looked up and tried to laugh: "You know, it's an old fault of mine - to blame myself for things that weren't all my doing - like the accident with our horse! And other people let me... The people I trust most..."

"Your husband? Has been to visit you?" I asked.

"Yes. He wasn't hopeful. He was so cool, so resigned about it - about _my life - pitying_, as if from some high place above me!" Her voice was tinged with bitter anger. "I don't believe he's _truly_ changed, doctor - not deep down... Why do we never see clearly what we have until it's gone for ever?"

"You mean Alec d'Urberville?"

She put her head in her hands. "He was no saint - but then, neither am I. And he even used to joke that he was 'a bad fellow' - but..." - and here she laughed ruefully - "he wasn't an Angel, either!"

"This isn't just another reason to feel guilty, is it?"

"No - this is me awake at last!" Her expression told me that she was in earnest. I let her tell her story, unravelling the twists of love and hate:

"When I needed him, he was there, near at hand - not in Brazil, 'finding himself'. Even at the start, he'd offered to help if there was a baby - only I was too proud to tell him, saying I'd never truly loved him... And what use was my pride? Our son died. 'Twas only this year I told him we'd even had a son: he wished he'd known... When he tried religion to get me out of his mind, I took it apart - all the arguments Angel had taught me, all the reasoning I scarce understood myself... But which of us most lacked reason? I always looked for the worst in Alec and the best in Angel. Even when Angel left me, and tried to make a fool of me with Izz - thank God she'd more sense than to agree- I _still_ worshipped him - as if he were the 'perfect man'!"

"There's no such creature."

She nodded: "Oh, I know that too well! But through wanting too much, you can lose what you've got. It can slip through your fingers, like blood..." She twisted her wedding-ring. "He was so kind, so generous... But he must've known I'd only gone back for Mother and the children - to put a roof over their heads and food on the table. I thought I could keep what I did from what I felt, just play the whore. Yet he treated me like a wife. I suppose he hoped I'd realise..." Her voice trailed off. "Now it's too late."

"It's not too late for you to see justice done, Tess."

"I hope you're right. If you and Mr. Holmes can't help me, no-one can," she said.

"Then tell me what _really_ happened at The Herons."

"It was the shock of seeing Angel again - he looked as if he were dying, all thin and yellow. After he'd gone, I started crying, and quarrelled with Alec. He was still in bed... I got dressed and said I was leaving, because Angel needed me - I kept seeing his eyes burning into me, as if they were telling me what I should do. As I told you before, cruel things were said... Alec said that I'd be mad to run after a man who'd treated me so badly - that I was making a fool of myself. I told him he'd no right - that he wasn't my husband. He said that he loved me, that he'd been more of a husband to me than Angel ever would or could be. But I laughed and walked out."

"So he was still alive when you left The Herons?"

She nodded. "Yes, he was. I can almost picture him.." The look of tenderness stealing over her porcelain-pale face turned to sorrow. "But I wanted to hurt him, to make him pay... It was still quite early - upset and angry as I was, I didn't want to raise the whole house, so I went out quietly, down the back stairs. I needed time to think, to get the sea air - to sort things out alone."

"So no-one saw you leave? Not even Mrs. Brooks?"

She shrugged. "I thought one of the maids might've been about - the broom-cupboard door was ajar, and I heard something... But no - nothing certain."

"But you were wearing your hat? Did you have your parasol?"

"I - I can't recall. I had them later, I know that. I was in a hurry - I don't think I even thought of it. Perhaps I just got ready without thinking...

"I don't know how long I was walking... I went through the Gardens. I was bitterly angry. I kept thinking on the way they'd both treated me. I turned and started towards the station. I needed time alone, to decide for myself - Isn't that what the fable says all women desire most? I wanted to go back to Mother. There were times when both boys had wronged me. I wanted to be able to choose freely - maybe to choose neither of them... But as I walked, it began to become clearer..."

"So you did make a choice?"

She half-smiled. "I thought, What right had Angel to think he still owned me, after all he'd done - and hadn't done? To walk back into my life like that, as if nothing had happened? What did I owe him? Alec had beguiled me at first, but he tried to make amends for it. He'd cared for me... Angel was my husband on a piece of paper, nothing more... But just as I was on the point of turning back, who should I see ahead of me, leaving the station and walking out of town, but Angel - And I began to run after him, like a moth to a candle, like the fool Alec said I was."

"Like a drug-taker reaching for the syringe," I said, thinking of Holmes.

"I don't know about that - but that's how it was. Eventually I caught up with him. He helped me fix my hat - I suppose it had blown off while I was running... I told him what had happened, and he began looking at me in a strange way again, like when we'd spoken at The Herons - as if he could see into my soul. It was a waking dream - or nightmare. I thought he said: 'He's dead, and you killed him.' Perhaps I imagined it, but somehow I just _knew_ Alec was dead. I remembered quarrelling, and I thought, I must've killed him - or has he killed himself because I've gone? Had my _words_ struck him to the heart?... I remembered there had been a knife on the breakfast tray, and it seemed I could have done it. I saw myself doing it, in the way that you do when your spirit goes out of your body. I believed that was what had happened... Then Angel repeated something I'd heard him say a long time ago, on our honeymoon - that while that man breathed we could never live together; that it would be different if he were dead."

"But you are sure you did _not_ do it?"

She fixed me with her most direct gaze. "It's oftentimes I've laid my head on his breast, and I would not place a knife there! Why, the worst I've ever done was hit him with my work-glove, and that's a long way from killing!"

"I believe you." It was not simply her charm at work; there was a sincerity in her speech which could not be doubted, unlike the dazed air which had clung to her in our previous interview.

"That doesn't make it any easier," she said, and paused. "He died thinking I despised him. And I don't think I did."

"One can learn to live with regret, Tess; it's not the same as guilt at killing someone."

"I tried, I tried to keep my heart out of what my body did... I tried not to _let_ myself love him... But I couldn't... _I would I were back in my saucy love's arms_..." She was dry-eyed, but it was obvious that she was struggling to control her emotions. "I don't make a good whore, however much I lied to myself - or to him."

"Your evidence is the key to this case. I would advise you say little to anyone else as yet. But Mr. Holmes will find it most useful."

"The police won't believe me, anyway. They think I'm no better than I should be."

"You're better than many. In fact, you're a very brave woman."

"No I'm not. This is all that's left for me to do, to put things right. You see, those five nights at Bramshurst Court, on the run, I - I fear I may have betrayed him. With my husband. I can't remember clearly - just that I needed comforting - as I had before, in the Chase... I said I was a murderer, and Angel said that _excited_ him - the idea that I'd killed a man for him... He frightened me."

"I've read of such cases." I did not add that they were to be found in medical Latin in Krafft-Ebing's _Psychopathia Sexualis_.

"I thought of how he'd laid me like a corpse in the stone coffin on our honeymoon... I don't know now whether he was truly sleep-walking then... Oh, Dr. Watson, I want to be clean again! Is it possible?"

I squeezed her hand upon the table. "You are doing all the right things, my dear. In a day or two we'll have this all sorted out and you'll be free."

"I don't know rightly whose wife I truly was, but maybe I can be a good widow. I've faced the worst in this place, and one thing I'm sure of is that I'll be no-one's victim again."

"I'm sure of that, too."

* * *

When I returned to our apartments at The Herons, I found Holmes leaning forward in the leather armchair, listening intently as Mrs. Brooks, _pince-nez_ glinting, read aloud from a gilt-edged volume of Tennyson. Her accent imparted to the Laureate's words the cadences of her beloved ballads:

"_...The wind is blowing in turret and tree.  
I wrapt his body in the sheet,  
And laid him at his mother's feet.  
__O the Earl was fair to see!_"

"Excellent!" I said. "Worthy of Ellen Terry!"

"Wheesht, doctor! There's naucht like a guid poem tae stir the bluid!"

"- Or to _chill_ it," added Holmes. "Watson, Mrs. Brooks has identified the poem to which 'Liza-Lu alluded at our first meeting."

"And?"

"I was right! Our séance tomorrow may be more productive than anticipated! Mrs. Brooks, can you cope with the scenario as I've devised it?"

"I think so, Mr. Holmes!"

"Now, Watson, how fares our fair captive?"

I described what had happened in Melchester. Holmes sprang up and clapped his hands together in excitement. "It fits!" he cried. "It fits!" as I described Tess's revised account of her husband's behaviour when she had met up with him after leaving The Herons. "By God, Watson! This is a diabolical business! Conspiracy, candomblé and Krafft-Ebing! There's a veritable reek of sulphur about that Angel fellow! As you said yesterday, Mrs. Brooks, shades of _Jamie Harris_!"

"But Mr. Clare has an alibi!" I protested.

Holmes laughed: "And the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman! Let us see how his alibi holds up tomorrow!"

**To be continued.**


	7. The Fall of Lucifer

**CHAPTER VII. **

**THE FALL OF LUCIFER**

The following morning, I sat in the main parlour downstairs, across the hallway from the dining-room, reading my mail and the papers. I was forced to move from chair to chair as Mrs. Brooks and Susan came in to dust and polish around me.

"Weel, Doctor Watson, let's hope there'll be an end tae this sorry business soon!" our hostess remarked. "I'm glad the lassie cam' tae her senses about that husband o' hers! It's a shame it's owre late for the ither chiel, though!"

"Such is fate, Mrs. Brooks!"

She sighed, and turned her attention to the maid: "Now, Susan, mind that you dinna scairt the wood there..."

But she seemed in better spirits than for the previous ten days or so since the crime. As she went about her duties, I heard snatches of a song, of happier - indeed, of more risqué - character than her murdered _Earl Richard_ and demonic _Jamie Harris_:

"_'Ye lee, ye lee, my bonnie May,' he says,  
'Sae loud's I hear ye lee;  
For dinna ye mind yon bonnie simmer nicht  
When ye lay in the yowe-bochts wi' me, me.  
When ye lay in the yowe-bochts wi' me?'_"

The parrot's voice picked up and echoed the sprightly air.

An interesting woman, Polly Brooks, I thought: a woman of strong character and feeling who had sublimated her own personal tragedies through work. If they had lived, her own children would have been of an age with the victim, and the nature of the case had reawakened old doubts about the satisfactory nature of her own marriage. Undoubtedly that was why she felt so emotionally involved, and why she sought redemption through helping the fallen girl whom she had been too hasty to condemn at first. I had received a letter from Mary. A pure soul, my wife yet understood what lay at the heart of the problem: "It is always we women who suffer most for respectability's sake," she wrote. I resolved to invite her to join me here as soon as the conclusion of criminal matters permitted; somehow the thought of her alone in London seemed suddenly unbearable.

Susan was sent home after helping Mrs. Brooks bake some scones for tea. In the early afternoon, Holmes, disguised, set out for the station.

I watched from the doorway of the front parlour as he returned with the visitors arrived: a man and a young girl.

"Good afternoon, Polly, m'dear!" he said.

The lady of the house gasped, and I must admit that I too was momentarily shaken at first glance.

"Mrs. Clare...?" she murmured.

Holmes laughed. "Nay, Polly! This is Miss Durbeyfield, her younger sister - she's come with Mr. Clare to help clear out his wife's things!"

"Och, I'm sorry! I'm delighted tae meet you, though I'm sorry it's no' on a happier occasion! Mr. Clare - I maun say the same tae yoursel'! But you're luikin' a wee bit better nor when I last saw you!" she gushed, taking their coats.

Mr. Clare smiled weakly: "I'm sure." He cut an odd, haggard figure, his face sallow beneath the tan. Like his late rival, he was about twenty-eight, but age was the only similarity between them. He had doubtless been handsome in health, albeit in a rather bland way, and was still sufficiently attractive to enthrall his young companion, who gazed adoringly up at him. However, there was something slightly effeminate about his small mouth, and his fair beard could not quite conceal a weak jaw.

"I trust you'll tak' tea wi' us afore you stairt on this sorry business?" Mrs. Brooks asked. "Captain Mycroft's an auld friend o' my late husband, and we thocht you'd like something tae eat."

"That's most kind of you, madam," Clare answered. "Isn't it, 'Liza-Lu?" he added, prompting the girl.

"Yes, it is. Thank you kindly, ma'am."

I noticed that, unlike most poor girls entering a reasonably fine house for the first time, she did not gape at the elegant hall stand, or the plaster cornices. She began to walk unbidden into the front parlour.

"Aye, that's richt - I canna thole fowk staunin' on ceremony!" said Mrs. Brooks. "I've some fresh scones, and the Captain gi'ed me some o' your mither's apple jeely."

'Captain Mycroft' took charge of the guests. I was introduced as Mr. Watson, a visitor from London, newly arrived in town for a brief holiday.

"Pleased to meet you, sir, miss," I said in my bluffest 'club' manner. "Sad business about your wife - saw it in _The Times_. It must be a great burden to you - you have my sympathy."

"Thank you, sir," he replied coolly. "It was - unfortunate. It seems she is mentally disturbed, but that may not save her."

"Sad indeed."

Clare turned to Holmes: "It's pitiful, Mycroft - she keeps changing her story. I blame myself for going to Brazil."

'Liza-Lu clung to his arm as they seated themselves on the couch. "Please, Angel - must we talk of...?"

He turned to her with a tender look. "My dear child, I'm so sorry! Captain, Mr. Watson - my sister-in-law finds certain subjects distressing. I think we should talk of other things."

"You're quite right!" said Holmes. "Ain't he, Polly?"

"Aye, what wi' the polis and the papers... We'd be better pittin' the hale business ahint us!"

"Mr. Clare, I'm not a man who has travelled widely," I lied, "so I should like to hear of your travels in South America. It must be a fascinating continent."

"Why, yes. I sailed to Rio early last year - that's how I met old Mycroft here, although my memories of that time are a little foggy."

Holmes laughed: "I told him he'd never make a sailor, Poll - can't hold his grog!"

"Mycroft, that rum took the varnish off the bar!" Then he noticed that 'Liza-Lu was looking uncomfortable again. "But we shouldn't speak of such things in the presence of young ladies, eh, Lu?"

The girl blushed demurely. She was as Holmes had described her - slighter than her sister, and a little sharper of feature, but the resemblance was striking. With a veil and the shadow of a parasol... I wondered.

"Well," Clare went on, "I travelled down to Curitiba, and then inland, with a party of other British settlers. We were hoping to find good land for ranching, but... It all turned sour. I went down with a wasting fever."

Mrs. Brooks appeared sympathetic. "My Josh got sick in Buenos Aires. He thocht he'd recovered, but as soon as he landed in Bristol, he drapt deid."

"My sympathies, Mrs. Brooks."

"Och, that was in '75! I've no' just sat around greetin' since - I took this house the year after, and stairted wi' the guests. It pays weel eneuch, save when - But as Miss Durbeyfield says, it's no' nice tae talk about such things. It's nae guid for business, though, fowk deein' unnatural!"

Clare bit into a scone. "At least it wasn't poison!"

Mrs. Brooks cleared her throat, and exchanged a disapproving glance with 'Liza-Lu.

Holmes pretended to be amused, and I gave a studiously idiotic: "I say, that's rather funny!"

"There's naucht amiss wi' my cookin'!" Mrs. Brooks said defensively.

"Of course there ain't, Polly!" Holmes replied. "We're only teasing!"

"So what about Brazil?" I asked again.

Mr. Clare whispered to Mrs. Brooks, who nodded, "Richt you are, sir!" She then suggested to 'Liza-Lu that the latter help her fetch some more food up from the kitchen, leaving the men to discuss "the sort o' things menfowk dee." The girl agreed, and we were able to relax a little.

"Brazil? Ah yes, a fascinating country and peoples," the traveller said. "I've seen and heard things there that are quite unfit for female ears."

"Hum!" Holmes grunted. "Our Poll's got a stronger stomach than many men I've sailed with!"

"That's hardly the point! Ladies _ought_ to be shielded from coarseness. And young girls like 'Liza-Lu especially need protection: their purity's too precious to be sullied casually."

"That's very chivalrous of you, Mr. Clare," I said.

"Innocence, once lost, is lost for ever," he replied sombrely. "The Brazilians have a stronger sense of honour than we Englishmen. I told one of my Brazilian guides, Afonso, about the... _situation_ with my wife. He couldn't understand why I had simply left, without demanding satisfaction from her seducer: he thought I was a coward. He told me about a mule-driver he knew, who'd found out that his bride had been - shall we say - less than virtuous in her past. He found the guilty man and killed them both, for shaming him. Cut their throats. And no-one told the authorities: the whole village understood, you see, that it was a matter of personal honour. I suppose they would understand _this_, now, wouldn't they, Mycroft?"

"Yes. Over there they take defending their women's honour very seriously - though usually with a stiletto, not a kitchen carving-knife."

The corners of Clare's mouth twitched into a bleak smile: "Quite - but then, Sandbourne's hardly Rio! Poor Tess... I suppose she was trying to save us both from further shame..."

"It is a pity that her family's left in such a state."

Clare sighed: "Indeed, but... One must hope for the best. Sadly, my own means are not extensive - but I'll do what I can, for 'Liza-Lu's sake. Tess asked me to. But that wretched man made them so abjectly grateful to him that the mother resents my intrusion... Ignorant slattern!"

My colleague lit his pipe. "She's had a hard life, Clare. She's bound to be wary."

"Well, it's a rum state of affairs that she should've welcomed charity from her daughter's paramour and not from her lawful husband!"

"No doubt she judges differently from the likes of us. What's your opinion, Mr. Watson?"

"I shouldn't venture one, sir; I don't know the woman. All the same, it is tragic."

"Yes," Clare said in an abstracted tone. "It's difficult for my family, too. My father is quite elderly, and, being a clergyman, the scandal... It's unfortunate that Tess ever met that man! She's of a degenerate noble line -deficient in will, I'm afraid. Decadent. How could she hope to resist temptation? 'Liza-Lu is from the same stock, but seems more promising material. Enfeeblement of the will is one of the diseases of our time, Mr. Watson. Do you read Nietzsche?"

I confessed that I did not.

"That's a pity; you'd find him most interesting..."

At this point, the women re-entered the room, bearing trays, Mrs. Brooks with a pot of fresh tea and 'Liza-Lu with sweet cakes and biscuits. The girl appeared in brighter spirits, her sullenness diminished.

"Angel," she said excitedly, "Mrs. Brooks has been showing me how to read tea-leaves! She says she sees a wedding!"

Clare laughed disdainfully. "Why, Lu, you are a droll child! We'll have to get these rustic superstitions out of your head!"

"Don't mock me!" she snapped. "'Tisn't fair!"

"And you want to be a schoolmistress?" he parried.

"What's this?" Holmes smiled. "Don't make fun of the lass so! It's a harmless game of the ladies!"

"It can lead to all sorts of irrationality, Mycroft. As I told you, some of the Candomblé rites in Brazil are unspeakable. It appalls me that such primitive rot is still practised in this day and age!"

Mrs. Brooks sniffed. "You shouldna sneer at things you dinna understand, young man."

"The point is, my good woman, that I _do_ understand it all too well. The slaves in Brazil, poor fools, believe they are practising ancient magic, sacrificing fowls, _et cetera_, and entering trance states wherein they are possessed by their gods. It is all nonsense - as is the stuff my father practices in church every Sunday. The reality of it is mind-control."

"Mind-control?" I queried.

"Mesmerism of a sort. The strong-willed always prevail over the weak: it's the law of nature. Properly used by logical people, it could be of great use to the world. But the priests and priestesses of these cults trivialise it, putting ignorant people into trances and duping them into believing they can communicate with other worlds."

"You mean like spirit mediums?"

"All such nonsense," he answered.

'Liza-Lu's eyes widened: "But that's not nonsense!"

"What isn't?"

"Spirit mediums. Mrs. Brooks told me! Isn't that so, Mrs. Brooks?"

She drew herself up to her full height. "Weel, sir, some hae said I've a talent for it mysel'," she said proudly.

Clare glanced at Holmes incredulously. "A sensible Englishwoman...?"

"Scotswoman!" she corrected him severely.

"Anyway," 'Liza-Lu continued, "she told me she can prove it, and help me talk to Father -"

"Really, at your age!"

"But Angel -"

He made a cutting gesture with the edge of his hand, to indicate that nothing further was to be said on the matter. "Mrs. Brooks, may we have the key to my wife's rooms, to collect her things?" asked Clare.

"Certainly, sir," she answered coolly, and led him and 'Liza-Lu upstairs.

The girl turned to her, and said sofly: "I'll try to persuade him. I-I'd so like to speak to Father again..."

Mrs. Brooks nodded.

I almost pitied 'Liza-Lu. For all her adoration of Angel Clare, which was obvious in the way she looked at him and clung close to him, it was equally apparent that he, in his conceit, saw her as a young mind to be shaped and bent to his own will. He had failed with his unhappy wife, but had no intention of failing with her sister.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Holmes darted out into the entrance and picked up the girl's gloves from the hall stand. They were of white kid, small and narrow as the hands they fitted. He sniffed at them suspiciously.

"Good perfume lingers," he observed. "These gloves have been cleaned recently, but the scent remains."

"Scent?"

"Lavender masking civet: _Jicky_, I'd say. Not something one usually associates with modest village maidens."

"The bottle on Mrs. Clare's dressing-table!"

Holmes smiled. "Exactly, Watson. Our veiled lady."

I was chilled. "They're taking their time upstairs."

"It's all right; Mrs. Brooks is listening at the door."

He replaced 'Liza-Lu's gloves, as Mrs. Brooks descended, holding her beads and châtelaine to prevent a tell-tale rattle.

"I keeked in at the keyhole. You should hae seen the bit quine - primpin' and posin' afore the gless with her sister's hats, and haudin' up her gouns against hersel'! And for a brither-in-law, he's gey free wi' his haunds, aye clappin' her!"

"Anything suspicious?"

"She seemed tae ken where things were. And I think she's persuaded him about our wee 'experiment'!"

"Good! Are you ready?"

She nodded. "Sae is Rio."

When the couple came downstairs again, I noticed that 'Liza-Lu was wearing a dainty pearl necklace; she had also put on more of Tess's perfume. Holmes was right; it was identical to the faint traces on her gloves, the sharp musk of the cat penetrating through the flowers.

"Mrs. Brooks, Lu has persuaded me to humour her with this séance game of yours. I'd like to see how you do it," said Angel Clare.

"That's gey big o' you," she replied with some sarcasm. "But I'm sure you'll find it interestin'."

"Mycroft!" he whispered to Holmes. "What say you to a small wager on whether I can show she's a fraud?"

"It's an idea, but it wouldn't be very courteous to our hostess, would it?"

"This way," said the lady, and led the four of us into the rear parlour. "I aye use this wee table."

"It's probably rigged," Clare murmured.

'Liza-Lu was glancing around her. "What's that mark on the ceiling?"

"Thon's your sister's chaumer up there," explained Mrs. Brooks.

"It's not...?"

"_That_ colour? It's plaister, lassie! The bluid cam' through and shewed up the cracks in the ceiling! It was a guid job it did, or I'd no' hae kent it needed mendin' till it had fa'n doun!"

The girl turned to her brother-in-law. "Angel, maybe you're right... Not a séance - not under _that_..."

"Don't make yourself look even more foolish, darling!"

Mrs. Brooks kicked her armadillo sewing-basket under the table, and asked me to draw the curtain on the small window. Enough light seeped through the rose-coloured cloth to enable us to see reasonably well, but it imparted a strange mood to the room. In its cage in the corner, the parrot stopped chattering.

"Be seated," she said. "No, as I place you: 'Liza-Lu, facing me; Mr. Clare, on my richt, sae you can keep your e'en on me; Mr. Watson, on my left. Captain Mycroft...?"

Holmes shook his head. "I'll watch this time, if it's all right by you, Poll."

"Join hands, please," Mrs. Brooks ordered. She was sitting with her back to the door which led through to the tradesmen's entrance. "Empty your minds of this warld's substance..."

"Easy for some!" Clare murmured.

"Shh!" admonished the girl. There was a sound as of a cab or cart drawing up at the rear of the house. "What's that noise?"

"Probably the coal merchant," he suggested.

The medium closed her eyes. "Hooves, I hear the hooves..."

'Liza-Lu gasped: "The d'Urberville coach! A death!"

"Joshua Brooks, Joshua Brooks, are you here?"

Two raps - not loud, but clear enough.

"Aye, that's you, Josh. I hae some friends here, Josh - friends wantin' tae speak tae kindred that's crossed the Bar. Can you help me find them?"

Again, two raps.

"Is there onyone for Mr. Watson?"

One rap.

"No. For Mr. Clare?"

Again, one.

"No. For Miss Durbeyfield?"

A rapid burst of tapping.

"Steady now!"

'Liza-Lu's eyes were fixed upon Mrs. Brooks' face. Her hand tightened around mine.

"She must be working the table-leg with her foot," Angel Clare whispered. "It's ridiculous..."

"I see a man," said Mrs. Brooks. "He's no' sae auld - but aulder than thae present... A countryman, by the luik o' him... J - the letter J... Jock, or Jack - aye, Jack. His name's John..."

"Father!" cried 'Liza-Lu. "What do you want? Mother's all right, you know - we're managing fine now! All of us! Except Tessy -"

Clare twisted the girl's wrist. "Don't be a little idiot!"

There was more tapping. "Your faither says he knows Tess is in trouble... She's killed someone - something -"

"A man?"

"A horse. Something about a mail-cairt..."

"Prince!"

Clare muttered, "Did you tell Mycroft about any of this?"

"There's something else -" the medium went on. "Someone else trying tae get through... 'Liza-Lu, did you ever hae a brither that's crossed owre?"

"Oh - there was one older than me, who died years ago. A sister, too."

Her brother-in-law was growing increasingly irritable. "You're feeding her the information!"

"No - it's no' a bairn... No' a brither... Someone _wantin'_ tae be a brither tae you... Or brither-in-law."

Holmes was now standing behind Mrs. Brooks. I thought I heard him lock - or unlock - the door. Since I was seated on the same side as the hinges, my view was not clear.

"It's a young man," she said. "He canna rest; he was taken of a sudden..."

Suddenly, 'Liza-Lu stood up and stared straight ahead at the door, which was suddenly ajar. "What do you want?" she murmured, as if to someone who stood upon the threshold.

Mrs. Brooks smiled chillingly. I caught a few bars of an old tune whispered under her breath - _Earl Richard_:

"_Then up and spak' the popinjay  
That flew abune her heid..._"

Rio picked up the cue, and screeched loudly:

"_'Lady, keep weel your gay cleiding  
Fae aff that young lord's bleid!'_"

The girl shrieked: "So it was my hand, but his plan! Don't blame me! I couldn't have done it alone!"

She pointed with trembling hand at Angel Clare. He pulled a knife from his belt. The thin blade gleamed in the dim light as he lunged at her. She screamed, but he tripped over the armadillo work-basket and fell. Holmes overpowered him and the stiletto clattered to the floor. 'Liza-Lu, shivering, still gazed towards the doorway. Mrs. Brooks and I turned towards the apparition which had prompted her confession: a tall, swarthy young man leaning on a walking cane, his left arm resting in a light sling.

"Honestly, anyone would think you'd seen a ghost!" he remarked wryly...

**To be continued.**


	8. Prodigals

**CHAPTER VIII. **

**PRODIGALS**

It was indeed Alec d'Urberville. 'Liza-Lu gave a weak cry and crumpled to the floor in a faint. Mrs. Brooks, apparently unshaken, retrieved her sewing-basket. Three officers of the Wessex Constabulary followed our 'ghost' into the room. While two of them arrested and handcuffed the spitting and swearing Angel Clare, the other revived his accomplice.

"There is the weapon," said Holmes. "It is a Portuguese stiletto, the veteran of several bloody bar fights in Brazil. And the creature beside it is Mr. d'Urberville's assailant - am I not right, sir?"

"Perfectly correct, Mr. Holmes," the victim confirmed.

"Captain Mycroft - Sherlock Holmes?" gasped Clare. "Duplicitous bastard!"

"Dinna speak tae him like that, you peelie-wallie wee runt! You'll be payin' for my house-repairs - and the linen your wee bit friend ruined!" cried Mrs. Brooks, not entirely accidentally treading on his hand.

'Liza-Lu coughed as she regained her senses. She stared at the young man she had stabbed, her thin face twisted into a hideous image of hate. "Why couldn't you die? We shouldn't have to live on your dirty money - my sister's whoring! Stoke charity and d'Urberville shame!"

She tried to claw the face of the policeman who snapped the handcuffs upon her slender wrists. As he dragged her away, she sobbed hysterically: "_She was the fairer in the face_..."

"You should extend your knowledge of Tennyson," Holmes countered:

"_'Tis only noble to be good.  
Kind hearts are more than coronets,  
And simple faith than Norman blood._"

Mrs. Brooks and I helped Alec d'Urberville to the couch. He looked drawn and tired, and his breathing was rather shallow, but his health had improved remarkably since our last meeting.

"Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, I'm indebted to you both - and to you, too, Mrs. B.!" he said.

"Och, laddie!" she exclaimed, and left off arranging the cushions to hug him maternally.

He winced. "Gently, old girl! I'm in no condition for anything compromising!"

"Wheesht!" She pretended to scold: "Hae you ony idea how bad this has been for business- We thocht you were deid!"

"The Devil looks after his own!"

"Clootie be danged! I ken your like, chiel, aye misca'in' yoursel'! It's the unca' guid that's the warst - wolves in sheep's claes!"

"- Or a demon in Angel's!" added Holmes.

"Please," said d'Urberville, "not _too_ witty - some of us are in stitches already!"

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Still sore about the chest - the bandages are like a damned strait-jacket - but it's better than being dead, even temporarily."

I looked at Holmes, who was grinning like the Cheshire Cat through his false beard.

"It's my doing, I'm afraid," my colleague confessed. "It was apparent to me from the first that this was no straightforward crime of passion, and that the best way of catching the criminals would be to convince them that their scheme was succeeding. Inevitably, they would overplay their hand."

"Talking of cards, Mr. Holmes told me you'd met the two Queens," Alec said, turning to me. "A narrow escape - they hunt as a pair! You know, it's almost worth having a misspent youth for the memories: it's no fun being confined to bed _alone_... Anyway, I must thank you again for patching me up - the 'Angels of Death' would've done for me, but for you and Mrs. B.!"

"It's my job," I said. "I was an army surgeon before I went into general practice: the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers."

"But I dinna ken how -" Mrs. Brooks faltered. "I mean, tae mak' us a' think -"

Holmes replied: "The local police agreed to maintain secrecy in order to obtain our assistance on the case. They in turn directed the press to reveal nothing which could jeopardise the investigation. Mr. d'Urberville had his wound treated at a nursing home, under his original name. One advantage of staying at a health resort!"

"I _should_ still be resting," said Alec, "but I wouldn't have missed this for the world!"

Mrs. Brooks tutted disapprovingly, then addressed all three of us: "Weel, I think we a' could dee wi' a cup o' tea after thon stushie! Or would you prefer whisky? 'The sun's owre the yaird-airm', as the auld man used tae say!"

Whisky was unanimously preferred, although our hostess insisted on diluting it for the convalescent: "You've no' eneuch bluid yet, chiel!" He gave her a mock-mournful look. "- And dinna contradict, or you'll get beef tea instead!" she added, with a minatory wag of the finger.

While she brought out glasses and poured the drinks, Holmes took off his beard and removed Captain Brooks' watch and chain from his waistcoat. "Thank goodness it's over!" he said.

After we had recovered from the dramatic events of the séance, Holmes explained how he had approached the case:

"Initially there was little firm evidence which was not contradictory. Mr. d'Urberville was too weak from shock to remember much coherently. A carving-knife was missing, yet his wound was clearly caused by a smaller weapon. Angel Clare was an obvious suspect - _the_ obvious suspect - in terms of motive; also his past behaviour, particularly the coffin episode, indicated morbid tendencies and the potential for violence. But he had the perfect alibi - being seen taking breakfast in the busy dining-room of a large hotel. Moreover, the assailant was almost certainly a woman - we all saw her. The nature of the crime and the fact that she had paused to put on perfume before leaving the scene suggested that she had acted in a cold and calculating manner, rather than impulsively.

"The picture became clearer when I met 'Liza-Lu. Most young girls would have shared in their mother's distress at such a time. But she was consumed by her jealousy of her sister, by her resentment of the family's dependence upon that sister and her lover, and by her desire for her sister's legal husband. At first I wondered how she could have developed such an infatuation with Mr. Clare, whom she could not have met. Then, watching them together on my second visit to Trantridge I realised that they had met before.

"She must have seen Clare when he called at the cottage in his attempt to track down his wife. There was an instantaneous attraction. She must have slipped out of the house after he had left, and caught up with him on his way to the station. Her mother had been drinking, and would have assumed that she was sleeping downstairs in the kitchen. They hatched the plot on the night train to Sandbourne.

"Early in the morning they came here to The Herons. While he distracted you, Mrs. Brooks, sending you up to call Tess, 'Liza-Lu was able to sneak in and conceal herself in the broom-cupboard. There she remained, until you had descended into the kitchen and Tess had slipped out past her through the back door. Then... I think we should hear from the victim."

Alec took up the story: "I was furious when Tess accused me of lying to her about Clare's return. I have my faults, but that- And she tried to blame _me_ for _his_ desertion of her. So I did say some blunt things, though nothing that wasn't the truth! I knew it couldn't last with him - that she'd probably need me to pick up the pieces again afterwards. I don't mind doing that, but... To see her throwing herself away, running after a man who despised her for bearing my child..." He sighed. "How do you prove you love someone other than by just being there? And how long can you endure being the 'reserve'?"

Mrs. Brooks nodded. I could see that she was fingering the watch and hair chain which Holmes had lain on the table.

The young man continued: "After Tess walked out, I stayed in bed, sulking. When I heard the door handle turn, I was pleased she'd come to her senses so quickly. I decided to pretend to be asleep. I heard her skirts rustle as she came close to the bed. Then, all at once, her lips were on mine, I opened my eyes - and the knife went in... I must've blacked out with the pain more or less at once. All I could remember were _her_ eyes - like Tess's, but not. Like a Fury's. I only recognised them today."

Holmes nodded: "'Liza-Lu then stole the carving-knife, to mislead the police. She put on some of Tess's perfume and her hat and veil, taking the parasol for additional concealment. She then left The Herons in as conspicuous a manner as possible, knowing that the distinctive hat and parasol would lead all who saw her to assume she was her sister. She had plenty of time to hand over the parasol and hat to Mr. Clare at the railway station. She then took the train home, where she was unlikely to have been missed, while he waited for his wife, with her accessories hidden under his coat."

"Sae where's my cairving-knife?" asked Mrs. Brooks.

"I think a careful search of Mrs. Durbeyfield's kitchen will find it. She has acquired many new things since moving to the cottage, but your mark on the handle should identify it."

"I _knew_ Clare was a bad lot from what Tess told me about him abandoning her, but this has gone beyond anything I'd expected!" said Alec. "The way he was able to worm his way into her mind, to convince her that she was guilty! What sort of man could do that to her?"

"He is an extremely twisted individual, there is no doubt of that. He knew - as I think anyone who has spoken to Tess soon realises - that she is deeply susceptible to guilt. And to anyone who has studied the use of suggestion - as Clare had, in the Candomblé rites of Brazilian slaves - such a susceptibility offers potential for exploitation. Even during his interview with her on the staircase he was subtly priming her."

"So which of them is the more guilty?" I asked. "Angel Clare or 'Liza-Lu?"

"Without 'Liza-Lu, Clare would still have tried to kill both those who had sullied his honour, but straightforwardly, with the knife, in accordance with South American _machismo_. The younger sister's involvement enabled him to devise a more subtle approach, using her as Tess's double. She was more than willing - no mere dupe - and probably suggested the _döppelganger _ploy herself: it was, after all, her only chance to _become_ the sister she envied. Meanwhile, the psychological manipulation was Clare's _forte_. And so a simple murder plot became a wider conspiracy: one killing to lead to another, helped by the social and moral prejudices of the judicial system. They are both in it up to their necks. But I must thank you, Mrs. Brooks, for providing me with the key which proved the girl's guilt."

"I dinna ken about that, Mr. Holmes - _you_ found the perfume on her gloves!" she said modestly.

"But _you_ identified the line from Tennyson's _The Sisters_. That poem revealed to me the tortuous jealousy and arrogance which motivated 'Liza-Lu. _She mix'd her ancient blood with shame_ was the line that unhappy girl quoted; but the whole narrative, especially in your dramatic reading, revealed itself both as a reflection of the case, and as the self-justification of the would-be murderess: _Therefore revenge became me well_."

Alec shook his head. "These old Norman houses! Plotting murder to preserve their pride, as if they were still living in the Middle Ages!" Then he added, deliberately letting his accent slip: "Thank God _my_ family's common as muck!"

Mrs. Brooks' jaw dropped in surprise: "I beg your pairdon?"

"I was right! Wasn't I, Watson?" Holmes cried. "You don't find vowels like that south of the Pennines!"

"That's extraordinary, Mr. Holmes!" the young man replied in his usual more careful tones. "Yes, I'm sorry if this disappoints you, Mrs. B., but I'm as much of a sham as a gentleman as I was as a ghost! My father's name was really Stoke - or at least that was his mother's name. She came from these parts, and went up north in service - you can guess the rest! Some gypsy - I've heard that his name may've been Smith - but then, it usually is in these cases, isn't it- So we're utterly self-made! It's Tess who's the _genuine_ d'Urberville! Do you forgive me?"

"Dinna fash yoursel' about it, son! We're a' Jock Tamson's bairns! Sae what's tae befa' Mistress - whatever she's ca'ed - your lassie? What about Tess?"

"She'll be released as soon as possible," Holmes assured us. "After that, well... I think that's for you and her to decide between you, isn't it, d'Urberville?"

"Indeed," he smiled, his eyes brightening with their old laughter.

* * *

I met Tess at the station in Melchester. Her mother and younger siblings had greeted her on her release, but now she parted from them, tearfully but happily, to return to Sandbourne in my company. She was wearing her elegant walking costume, freshly laundered, and her pretty hat with the black feathers. She still appeared a little pale, but she had a new air of confidence, born of a painfully-won self-knowledge.

"_Dear_ Dr. Watson!" she smiled. "I'm so grateful to you for your help! Times like these always show who your true friends are, and you and Mr. Holmes and Mrs. Brooks have been mine!"

"I'm very touched, dear girl. I'm only sorry it's meant that you had to spend these past days in a cell..."

"I'm not," she replied. "I needed that time to think - to grow out of that foolish infatuation with Angel... It was like waking from a nightmare."

"The worst is over, anyway," I reassured her.

She looked at me earnestly. "Tell me... Alec _is_ going to be all right, isn't he?"

"He's young and strong, and mending fast. His wound's less deep than was first feared - thankfully, 'Liza-Lu is so much weaker than yourself! Besides, he hasn't the temperament to play the invalid for long! Mrs. Brooks says he's quite impossible without you - she has to keep threatening him with her beef tea and poultices to make him take things easy! And I've told him it's rather soon for him to be smoking again. But no doubt you'll keep an eye on him until he's fully recovered!"

"So he does want me back?"

"He talks of nothing else. Did you doubt that he would?"

She hesitated. "After what happened at Bramshurst Court... Angel trying to... If it were to come out in the trial, it would be so cruel..."

"Alec knows the ways of the world: he guessed Clare would make an attempt, especially since you were effectively hypnotised."

Tess laughed as if to herself. "Of course! He's not like Angel! My God, when I think how I swallowed all _his_ contempt for me - 'not the woman he married'! There wouldn't be much to confess this time, anyway: I discovered why Angel prefers virgins... I've had more excitement digging turnips, but I'd not have realised that if I'd hadn't been able to compare! Anyway, he couldn't even... Well, maybe it doesn't count after all!" She looked down at the wedding ring on her ungloved left hand. "This is a lie, isn't it? I suppose I ought to take it off..."

"I shouldn't if I were you. You may need it again soon."

"Oh? And what do you know?" she asked with a hint of archness.

"I think a better offer may be pending, once you're free to take it up! I wish you both every good fortune: divorce cases can be vicious."

"We'll weather it together," she answered serenely.

I shall not attempt to describe the joyfulness of our young friends' reunion at The Herons. For both, the past few days had been a time of trial, perhaps the greatest test any marriage (for such it was, _de facto_ if not yet _de jure_) could face. They had survived, not unscathed, but perhaps had grown in maturity and wisdom through their ordeal.

Seeing them embrace, Mrs. Brooks began to dab her eyes with the edge of her apron: "Och, the dear bairns!"

"A most satisfactory conclusion!" I observed, turning to Holmes. "Now this is resolved, I think I should invite Mary here for a few days, for a proper holiday!"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed he. "We should be thinking of returning to London! I feel quite re-invigorated! And crime never takes a holiday!"

* * *

He was not mistaken: following our return home, we soon became engaged with other cases. Betwixt times, we were called upon to give evidence in the trial of Angel Clare and Eliza-Louisa Durbeyfield for attempted murder and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

As I had anticipated, the concomitant divorce proceedings were tangled, Tess's charges of cruelty and desertion being countered by her known adultery. However, the eventual result inclined to her favour. The guilty verdict on Clare in the criminal case and certain evidence concerning his health hardly aided his lawyer's efforts to present him as a wronged innocent in the divorce. (_This may explain his particular interest in virgins: I once encountered a patient with the hideous belief that defloration could effect a cure when mercury had failed. - J. H. W._)

Even as I write, I have on my desk before me a small envelope addressed to Mary and myself. It contains an invitation to a civil marriage before the Melchester registrar. No doubt at this very moment, Mrs. Hudson is taking a similar missive up to Holmes; while in Sandbourne, her cousin Polly Brooks is already airing her best silks.

**To be concluded.**


	9. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

The Slopes,  
Trantridge,  
Wessex

15/7/94

Dear 'Miss G.',

(I'll always think of you like that, although you're no more my assistant housemistress now than I'm your pupil!) - Many thanks for your congratulations - can't tell you how delighted I am with my grades - University here I come!

I remember how keen you always were on strange historical stories - we used to think YOU were strange in the House- so I thought you'd like the enclosed. As you see from the address, I'm down in Wessex with my grandparents for the vac. Grandpa found a manuscript at the bottom of a desk in the library, and asked me to type it up for him, so I made a spare print-out of it for you. It's a draft case study by the famous Dr. John H. Watson (as in "Sherlock Holmes and") about a juicy scandal re: my great-great-grandparents in 1890! It wasn't published at the time because even with the sort of fictionalisations Watson usually used (changing names, etc.) it would still have been recognisable. There was enough trouble with a libel suit over a _roman à clef_ by some architect, which led to an out-of-court settlement (the writer gave up prose for poetry soon afterwards as a result!).

Tess and Alec's marriage turned out very happily, and they had four more children. Being 'received in Society' wasn't something he gave a damn about, so the fact she was divorced didn't matter much. They were pretty un-stuffy for Victorians: broad-minded, fun-loving, and preferred more pleasantly bohemian company. But in the end, his heavy smoking (I've heard you could hardly see him for cigar-smoke sometimes!) caught up with him, and she outlived him by about 30 years. She died in 1949, when she was 80, having done a lot for the village. (The school was paid for by her and Alec in 1903 - but it closed a couple of years ago because of numbers, so now the local kids have to catch the bus into Chaseborough). Tess got a bit eccentric as an old lady, devoted to her aviary. There are still descendants of her finches and fancy poultry here - I suppose they descend from the original Stoke birds!

Grandpa says the scandal was never mentioned while Tess lived. The most he knew about it for a long time was that she'd divorced a first husband in the days when that was still considered shocking. He was amazed to discover that his dear old Granny could've had such a STEAMY past! Time's cruel. But if you ever see the old photos and portraits - the Sargent especially (you must come to see it some day, Miss G.- we've got a small Rossetti, too, which belonged to Great x 3-Grandpa Simon - Holmes was right!) - you'd know what it was all about! She was VERY beautiful in the hour-glass '90s style (no stick-insect supermodel!), and he was SO dashing! This may sound weird, but I'm almost sure I've seen them when I walk past the rose-garden - she loved the old cabbage-roses.

Grandpa says that HIS father had told him about visits from Aunt Polly Brooks, an old Scottish lady - sort of a godmother /adopted grandmother. She used to wear ropes of huge jet beads and brooches with dead people's hair in - the sort of thing you like (historic or not, I still think it's a bit sick). But the oddest thing he remembers now makes sense, he says. Apparently, at Xmas, Tess used to put any cards with ANGELS on in the fire, and swear at carol-singers for 'Hark, the Herald'-ing on the doorstep! Obviously it was still a sensitive subject - but then, that Angel Clare would've given anyone the creeps! What a perve! I wouldn't have fancied being alone with him at Stonehenge - not that you could, these days; you'd be arrested for trespass, or for being a hippie, I suppose.

As for Clare, it was very lucky Tess didn't really do anything with him. It turned out that what he'd had in Brazil was a flare-up of a dose of pox he'd caught in London, so he ended up even madder than he was to start with. Aunt Lu must've been counting her blessings! After leaving prison, she led a quiet life - charity work, and so on: whether she was truly repentant or not, I don't know - no-one seems to know much about her, not even Grandpa. I think she became a recluse later on.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll find it intriguing. I think it's funny being descended from a real femme fatale - I'll have to see if any of it's rubbed off on me when I go to Uni.!

Best wishes,

Teresa

(Stoke-d'Urberville)


End file.
